“My lady,” Calla called softly. The Harbingers stood close together, shielding her from the many eyes watching.
Alora didn’t move. She could do nothing but stare at her trembling hands stained black.
“You must stand.” Segrith appeared by her side, her voice low and severe. “A queen cannot fall into the dirt while the court watches. They grieve alone.”
Alora closed her eyes.
Then the sky shuddered.
A sound rolled out of it, low and vast, like the groan of something too large to be contained. The air warped. The edges of the Rift bled light and shadow, fraying, stretching, as if reality itself were being pulled apart thread by thread.
A tether snapped in her chest.
The Covenant broke.
The sky tore open again at once. It widened, hungry, sensing the loss of one half of its binding.
“The Rift,” she whispered.
One soul could not hold what two had bound.
The ground quaked beneath Alora’s feet as the tear split open with slow, terrible insistence. Shadows surged upward from its depths, skeletal hands scraping at the edges, seeking purchase.
If it continued splitting, the world would not survive it.
Alora staggered forward and raised her hands.
Power tore out of her.
It was neither spell nor song, but pure will given form. Light and darkness poured from her palms, weaving together as she pressed them against the ruptured seam. The Rift howled in answer, resisting her with a force that drove her to her knees.
She cried out as the strain ripped through her veins, her bones, her very soul.
The tear recoiled, shuddering as her power forced it inward, stitches of divine force lashing across its surface. The wound narrowed, edges knitting together in jagged, imperfect red seams.
But it did not fully seal.
It could not.
Alora gasped, breath shaking, sweat and blood slicking her skin as she held it there, arms trembling violently. The Rift throbbed beneath her Primordial grip, pushing back, testing her resolve with relentless pressure. It held.
Barely.
The weight of that binding fell entirely upon her. If she loosened her resolve even for a breath, it would tear itself open again and swallow everything she loved.
“So, this is the price,” Alora whispered hoarsely.
The Rift quieted, subdued but alive, pulsing like a restrained heart. The land settled around her, the wound reduced to a scar that would never fade.
Much like one now bleeding in her soul.
It was so unfair.
A dark part of her was tempted to let go and let it all be destroyed.
The moment they stole everything from him, Rune had decided he would be the end of the world. And in the end, he was.
The end that saved it.
