Still, I climbed on.
The wind bit as we rose into the sky, the Ascension Grounds falling away beneath us. Warriath shrank into a speck of color and memory. The cliffs of the Veiled Rise loomed ahead, their mists already reaching for us like fingers made of fog.
We entered the clouds.
And the world vanished.
I couldn’t see the sky. Couldn’t see the ground. Just thick silver mist and the sudden, suffocating silence between me and Kaelith.
Kaelith?I called into the bond.Please.
No response.
Kaelith, I don’t want to die like this.
Still nothing.
I swallowed hard, heart crashing like a drum in a cage. This wasn’t a trial anymore. This was an execution.
And I was going to die.
The realization settled into my bones with terrifying clarity. My lungs trembled as I thought of Zander, what my death would do to him. The way he’d been fighting for me in his quiet, warrior-scarred way. How he’d tried to protect my name even when his own was dragged through the mud.
Ferrula. Riven. Jax. Tae. Naia.
Even Cordelle, who had known more than he said, butneverlet me feel alone in it.
And then—Siergen.
My heart cracked.Thathurt more than I realized.
I’d come to love that little red dragon. His sly charm, his quiet strength. His belief in me when I had none left.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the fog. “I’m sorry I wasn’t enough.”
The mist ignited with light as my magic flared, bursting to life like a dam torn open. Storm magic surged from beneath my skin, blue-white energy bleeding into the air as my power rose?—
But there wasno anchor.
No bond.
No Kaelith.
And without her… my magic had no one to answer to.
No one totameit.
It turned inward.
On me.
Pain lanced through my spine, across my ribs, up my neck. My vision blurred as lightning crackled from my fingertips,splintering across the mist. The trial’s enchantments tried to contain it, but my magic didn’t want containment. It wantedrelease.
It devoured me.
The burn spread through my veins like wildfire, ripping my breath away. My limbs seized. My lungs locked.
My heart slammed once—twice?—
