“You are right, spider,” Alora growled. “We cannot bind a second Rift. But now that you hold a piece of my power, your soul is enough toanchorit.”
Sal’vathar’s eyes went wide, his laughter choking to a shriek. “No—no, wait?—”
Alora hurled him into the tear.
The Dominion’s scream was swallowed at once. The Rift snapped closed with a deafening crack, shadows severed mid-claw, their howls cut short, leaving behind nothing but smoking dirt.
Silence fell, broken only by the thunderclouds rolling over the eclipse.
All looked up as a black shape rose above them, blotting out the light.
A silhouette took form, vast enough to swallow the sky. The body writhed with tendrils of shadow and lightning, broad shoulders and clawed hands distorting like smoke caught in wind. His face was a void, featureless save for two pits of molten light, furnaces burning cold.
The Devourer had arrived.
He loomed like a storm of flesh and ruin, his maw dripping fire and shadow, his claws carved with ancient hunger. Eyes older than time fixed on Alora, sending a horrid chill coursing down her spine.
And the storm shifted.
The black mass drew inward, condensing. A clawed hand cut through it and limbs emerged, shaped from shadow into something almost human. His body was fitted with armor, black and crimson plates gleaming in the light. His white hair spilled like moonlight down his shoulders. The same slitted eyes from her nightmares burned brighter than fire.
And beneath his breastplate, where his heart should be, pulsed a vein of scarlet light—beating slow, steady, like the rhythm of a drum.
He was beautiful. Awful. A force clothed in ruin.
Vorak’s crimson gaze fixed upon her, and for a moment she understood. She understood how her mother could fall, how a god’s beauty could masquerade as salvation.
Alora’s heart pounded beneath that terrifying stare.
Frozen in place.
Vorak leisurely descended from the air. The moment his feet lightly landed on the ground, the earth shook. Shadows surged as if to attack him, yet they bent to him, chained to his will.
“Lashar,”Vorak called, his distorted voice echoing like several at once.“My awaited daughter.”
Alora’s legs trembled, her soul so cold she already felt Death’s presence on her skin.
“Come and greet your father.”
CHAPTER 67
Alora
The weight of Vorak’s abysmal existence settled over the land. The air crackled, the world itself straining beneath him. Alora’s breath faltered as it pressed through her bone and marrow.
Threads of red electricity sparked along his frame. The pressure of his power was immense and beyond reckoning. Fear kindled sharp in her chest. Yet beneath it, something far more dangerous stirred.
Recognition.
The power in her blood flared in answer. Because a fragment of her soul had always known his shadow and now stood trembling before its source. Instinct demanded she kneel.
But blood alone did not make a Primordial worthy of reverence.
Nor did it make them kin.
Alora lifted her glaive, its crimson light burning like dawn in her grip. “My father is dead, Titan. His soul has long passed through the Gates. And I intend to send yours after him.”
A hint of a dark smile curved the edge of Rune’s mouth, approval humming through the bond.
