It was fear she could squash most easily, anticipation or little white lies that she could force her caged curse to ignore. Still, the pain she got from releasing it would throw her down to her bedroll each night, forten years,swearing to herself that someday she’d find a way to rip it out of her body.
“She’s burning out,” Karr yelled.
Sonara blinked as she came back to the present, and focused on Azariah.
Help her, be brave,the voice in Sonara’s soul whispered.Do it now, before her time runs out.
The Princess’ skin was beginning to flake away, like ashes on the wind.
Her dark hair was aglow, the ends rising all around her as she fought. She had become more than a comrade, more than a deal made in Sandbank. She’d become afriend,the only female Sonara had ever trusted.
She stepped forward, without thinking, and lifted her own hands.
Yes,her curse purred inside.Release me now, Shadowblood.
With a shout, Sonara blasted open the cage inside of her. Her curse soared outwards, stretching for Azariah, little shadow hands grabbing ahold of the princess’ aura. It was pure terror,surging through her, hot and sticky and impossible to scrape from her skin.
But Sonara began to reel back the tether, remembering what had happened on the night she’d faced the Hadru. She harnessed the princess’ fear, the terror Azariah felt now as she faced the atlas orb.
In one breath, Sonara pulled the aura of fear right from the princess.
She hauled it back towards herself, letting her curse attack it, devour it… and in a breath it was gone.
Azariah’s body seemed to shift.
As if the fear that had been holding her back was the final weight that had to be lifted.
She drew herself to her feet, her entire body trembling with the effort as she kept her hands before her.
Sonara watched, amazed, as the princess shaped her lightning into a sword.
A mighty sword of pure Shadowblood power, far better than Gutrender could ever be. She lifted her hands above her head, the sword following with it, until it was poised above the atlas orb, ready to strike.
Take it down,Sonara thought to her.
The Princess slammed her hands down, and the lightning sword drove straight through the atlas orb.
A great explosion threw them all sideways as the ship shuddered.
The electricity fizzled out, collapsing in upon itself, fading from existence until it was no more.
Azariah collapsed, and somewhere beneath the ship, a greathumfell silent.
Sonara peered through the circular opening, the space where the atlas orb had just been… as the light-wall faded, its power gone.
The Dohrsarans were trapped by a cage no more.
The rush from the engine room was muddled and breathless, a moment of blurred time, full of uttered curses as Karr and Sonara hauled the princess up the stairs and back into the storage bay.
Her body was charred, smoke trailing from her hands, but she was alive… alive, and a savior.
Karr carried her towards the escape pod that sat waiting, the scent of Soahm no longer hiding inside. Sonara dragged an unconscious Markam in, too, strapping them both in haphazardly.
“You’re sure this thing works?” Sonara asked, as Karr frantically started it up.
The lights guttered and came to life within.
The door sealed shut, just as Sonara heard aboom.
