The air pressure drops. My ears pop. The water in the tunnel ripples without a current to drive it. I grin. My hands spark, red energy jumping between my fingers. The chaos in the room aligns, snapping into a sharp, singular point right above her body.
“She’s coming,” I tell him.
He lifts his head, eyes silver and hollow. “Stop.”
Then she gasps.
It is a wet, desperate sound. Her back arches off the cold stone. The wound in her chest knits together under a layer ofblack shadow and gold light, sealing the impossible damage in seconds.
Dreven freezes. He looks at her face, then at the healing skin, terrified to believe it.
Nyssa coughs. She sucks in a breath that rattles her ribs.
“Told you,” I whisper, the knot in my chest loosening until I can breathe again. “She promised.”
Dreven gathers her up against his chest, his hands moving over her face, her arms, her back. He checks for reality. He needs tactile proof that she isn’t a ghost. His shadows swarm them, coating the floor and wrapping around his boots in a frantic embrace.
“Nyssa,” he chokes out. It is a sound I never want to hear from him again. It sounds like something breaking.
She blinks, her amber eyes unfocused for a second before they find his. “Ow,” she croaks. “That really hurt.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. The sound bounces off the wet stone walls. The relief hits me in the chest with enough force to stagger me. I drop to a crouch beside them. My hands still spark, but the red energy feels lighter now, less jagged.
“You cut it close, slayer,” I tell her. “I was about to start breaking things.”
“You’re always about to start breaking things,” she whispers. She tries to sit up, but Dreven holds her fast. He buries his face in her neck. He shakes. The god of Shadows, the unshakeable force, trembles.
Voren steps out of the gloom near the tunnel entrance. He looks solid again, the grey overlay of the veil gone. He nods to me. A simple, flat acknowledgement. We won.
“He’s gone,” Nyssa says, her voice gaining a little strength. She puts a hand on the back of Dreven’s head.
I scan the room. The pressure is normal. The water outside the pocket holds its shape without the extra weight of the void pressing against it. “You evicted him.”
She nods. “He thanked me.”
Dreven frowns.
“Yeah,” she says. “I was surprised too. I guess he became something he didn’t like.”
“Or Aethel drove him to it,” I say.
“Aethel,” Nyssa spits out. “What the hell are we meant to do with her ghost? I really don’t want her hovering around making comments for the rest of eternity.”
Voren snorts. “Don’t worry about her. She is under my command. She will go to the void and stay there.”
“Good riddance,” I say, straightening up. “She was a tyrant when she was alive. I doubt death improved her personality.”
Dreven finally pulls back enough to look Nyssa in the eye. He looks wrecked. His composure is usually absolute, but right now, he looks like a man who stared into the abyss and didn’t like what he saw.
“We need to go,” I say, clapping my hands together to break the heavy mood. The sound echoes sharply off the wet stone. “Pool can’t hold this tunnel forever, and I am done with damp air. This place is depressing.”
Nyssa tries to stand. Dreven helps her up instantly. He grips her waist like he thinks gravity might try to steal her again.
“Can you walk?” he asks.
“I can walk,” she says, though she wobbles on her first step. “I just died, Dreven. I didn’t lose my legs.”
She finds her humour fast. That is a good sign. It means the Nyssa we know is actually back in there.
