Why does that fill me with dread?
She is nothing to me. A stranger. The enemy.
But my brother—he iseverything.
There’s no choice to make. It’s him. It will always be him.
“Do it!” I gasp.
He’s beside her, beside the woman I now know as Jasmine.
There’s a sound in my mind, the buzzing of The Divide? No—something beneath it, threading through the hum like a whisper just out of reach.
Prospero hesitates. “Ezekial, if I do this—”
“DO IT!”
Prospero speaks the ancient tongue, blood leaking from his fingertips and latching onto her skin, forming the shape. He begins to craft the rune, and the pressure upon us all slowly fractures like splintering glass…
One crack at a time, it ebbs away.
The sounds become quieter.
Kane gasps. His body jolts in my arms, but the relief of him breathing is cut short by his expression of… anguish. His eyes frantically search for... something.
“I’m here, brother,” I soothe, trying to feed my light into him.
Now no longer trapped in agony, Sai and Julien flit beside us. Sai’s palms are already hovering over Kane, but then he flinches—as though something has struck him. His markings dull.
Even Julien goes rigid, his hands pausing on my brother’s shoulders. “Something is wrong—”
As the rune is finalised, as it burns into her skin, marking her—she screams.
And The Divide screams with her.
The sound is everywhere, rattling through my bones, inside me and outside at once.
Everything detonates, a shockwave slams into us, plunging us to the ground.
And I feel the hold she once had on ussnap.
Why…
Why do I feel… bereft?
We’re spat out from The Divide, back onto the Earth Realm where Kane jerks, gasping in the clean air. His pulse is faint, but steady.
“Easy, mate. We’ve got you.” Sai’s on his knees, markings flaring once more, covering Kane’s body in blue.
Julien crouches beside Sai, lifting Kane against him, slicing his wrist to pour blood into Kane’s mouth.
“We have him, he will heal,”Julien assures me, his voice steady, but his eyes aren’t.
My brother is alive. The rune worked. So why do we feel…
The woman—Jasmine,collapses.
I flit to her, catching her unconscious body just before she hits the ground.
