Silence takes me.
Not absence. A still place. No weight, no water, no body. The Crown is a steady point in the middle of nothing, and the brand I hammered into him is a bright hook I can see even now. The knot writhes on it, small and ugly, trying to pretend it is something else.
A thread touches my wrist. Voren. Cold and certain. He doesn’t drag. He waits.
“I have you,” he says, not with sound. With authority.
It tries to lunge for me, to ride me out, but death doesn’t play by his rules. This is my tide. The chamber is a memory now, but the law I wrote there sits inside this space like a ring of iron. The brand binds to it. He pulls; the hook bites. He screams.
I bring light up inside the grey. Not brightness. Definition. I show myself the lines. His centre. The twist he uses to hold himself together. Shadow closes the gaps. Death sharpens. All the pieces I kept in balance for the Judge click.
I twitch and feel death descend. My eyes close, and I let it come. It’s the only way. Fighting it will let the Devourer live, and that is not an option.
I let go.
Darkness creeps in at the edges, gripping me in its coldness.
“Nyssa,” Voren’s voice is steady. “I’ve got you.”
I know.
I can feel his presence wrapped around my soul as it leaves my body.
It is not a gentle drift. It is a tear. One second, I am agony and stone, the next I am clarity and cold. The physical world drops away, leaving only the grey stillness of the veil. Voren stands right beside me. He does not look like a man anymore; he looks like a fundamental law of the universe wearing a stylish coat. He grips my arm, grounding me before the pull of the afterlife can drag me off course.
I look down. My body lies crumpled on the floor of the underwater chamber. Dreven stands over it, his shadow blade dripping with my blood. He doesn’t move. Dastian stares down at me, red sparks jumping from his skin to the wet stone. They guard the empty shell.
The Devourer screams. It is a vibration that shakes the grey space around us. He tries to detach from my dying cells, desperate to flee before the final severing. He thinks death is an exit. He thinks the vessel breaking frees him.
He is wrong.
The brand I hammered into his core holds fast. It glows white-hot in this dim place, a chain linking his essence to mine. He pulls, but the hook drags him with me. I am not leaving him behind.
With a blinding flash of light and an inhuman scream, the chamber goes silent and dark.
He’s gone.
I float next to Voren, waiting. Waiting to be pulled back into my body so I can resurrect for the third and hopefully, final time.
I look down through the veil. Dreven drops to his knees on the wet stone. He presses his hand over the wound, shadows pulsing into the dead flesh, trying to bridge the gap. Dastian doesn’t move. He stares at my face, his hands shaking. They arewaiting for the gasp. The sudden intake of breath that signals the slayer refuses to stay dead.
I wait for it too.
Minutes pass. The silence in the grey space grows heavy.
“Voren,” I say, looking at the Wraith god. “Why aren’t I falling?”
“You will,” he says with a soft smile. “Be patient.”
“Do you know me?” I mutter in response.
But I wait. The Devourer is gone from my body, gone from this world, but it looks like I have as well.
“You,” a voice echoes around me, and I turn as Voren steps in front of me.
“Hands off,” he warns.
“I am not here to harm her. I’m here to thank her.”
