I do not hit the floor.
Imas is there. He catches me, his arms wrapping around me, pulling me against his chest. He is trembling, vibrating with the aftershocks of the power I unleashed.
"Leora," he gasps against my hair.
I try to answer, but I have no voice. I have no strength. I have emptied myself completely.
I gaze past his shoulder, up toward the balcony. One of the archers stands up, swaying. He has clawed his own face into a ruin. He looks down at us, blind and mad, and lets out a final, gurgling scream before toppling over the railing, plummeting to the stone below with a wet crunch.
Then, darkness takes me.
21
LEORA
Time is a broken thing.
It feels as if centuries have passed since I stood in the doorway and screamed the void into existence. I remember the sound of Malek’s heart stopping—a wet, final thump that echoed in the silence of the room. I remember the way the world turned gray, then black, as my own power consumed me.
When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is the ceiling. It is cracked, a jagged fissure running through the plaster like a lightning strike.
I am lying on the floor. My head is pillowed on something warm and solid.
"Breathe," a voice whispers. "Just breathe."
I inhale. The air tastes of copper and the sharp, lingering static of spent magic. It tastes of death.
I push myself up, my limbs heavy and uncooperative. The room spins, then steadies.
The panic room is a graveyard of the mind.
The soldiers are still here. They are not moving. Some are curled into fetal balls, their faces slack and wet with tears. Others stare sightlessly at the ceiling, their eyes wide and empty, theirminds burned out by the terror I projected. They are breathing, but they are not present. They are husks.
Malek lies near the shattered door. He is face down, his massive body twisted at an unnatural angle. He is not breathing. The Warrior’s aura is gone, leaving his skin gray and dull. He died of fear. His heart simply gave up under the weight of the nightmare I forced him to live.
I look down. Imas is holding me.
He is sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, cradling my head in his lap. He looks... different.
The color of his skin has lost its metallic sheen; it looks softer, more human. The sharp, predatory angles of his face have eased. His violet eyes are no longer glowing with the inner light of Chaos. They are dim, rimmed with red from exhaustion, but they are clear.
He isDfam. He is caste-less. He is a man who has lost his god.
But as he peers down at me, there is no grief in his expression. There is only a profound, terrifying relief.
"You came back," he whispers.
He leans down and presses his lips to my forehead. The kiss is soft, reverent. It is not the desperate, consuming hunger of the bedroom. It is a benediction.
"How long?" I croak, my throat raw.
"Less than twenty minutes," he says. "Though it felt like a lifetime."
I shudder, leaning into his touch. "I killed him. I killed Malek."
"You saved us," Imas corrects me. His thumb strokes my cheek, wiping away a smear of dust. "You broke them all, Leora. With a single thought."
I look at my hands. They are trembling. "I am a monster."
