The illusion of Perin kept coming, his blade relentless, his smile cruel. He slashed again, at my side this time, and I screamed, half in pain, half in panic.
Kaelith!
Nothing.
I reached for her, clawed at the bond, but the thread that connected us was dark, cut off like someone had slammed a door and locked it from the other side.
No...
This wasn’t her silence. This was interference.
This wasn’t Kaelith’s doing, I realized, my heart thundering. She’d been blocked from me.
By this illusion. By Ledor’s power. By something twisted and cruel.
My magic kept climbing, spitting off my skin in jagged arcs of lightning and flickers of violet fire. It lashed out in every direction, searching for something to cling to.
But without Kaelith… there was no anchor.
No tether.
No control.
The pain deepened, like a furnace igniting in my blood.
My screams echoed across the false field as my body twisted, my sword falling from my hand.
Perin advanced.
I couldn’t tell if it was him anymore. If it had ever been him.
My magic was building, too fast, too much, like a dam about to burst, and I was trapped behind it.
And then my world blurred.
The field, the stars, the enemy in front of me.
It all melted into light and heat and pain.
I collapsed to my knees, my hands digging into the illusion-woven earth as my body convulsed with the burn of unchecked magic.
It hurt. Gods, it hurt.
My skin felt like it was splitting open from the inside out, every breath laced with fire, every heartbeat dragging shards of flame through my veins.
And through the haze of pain, Perin stepped forward, his image flickering slightly now, like the illusion struggled to hold. But his voice… that came through as clear as steel.
“You’re not one of us,” he said, his voice low, and final. “You never will be.”
The words sliced deeper than any blade.
Not because they were new.
But because they echoed everything I had feared since the day I first stepped into this cursed guild.
I screamed again as the magic swelled, my mind fracturing under the pressure. My memories and instincts blended, warping, and spinning out of control.
I couldn’t breathe.
