“Rynna!” His voice was distant as darkness closed in, and she collapsed into his arms.
They were still strong despite the damage he’d taken, and as his hold tightened around her, she felt something she’d never expected to feel from him ever again.
He felt safe. He felt likehome.
Chapter thirty-five
Ideservethis.
It was the first coherent thought to break through the waves of pain and memories that had been crashing over her since she put the undead warriors to flame.
Releasing the forbidden power and interfering so directly to save non-critical players just because she cared about them had crossed a line. It was against the Rules. Saving the world was paramount, but interfering too much or for non-critical reasons could ultimately do more harm than good. And now, she was being punished.
I’d do it again. The thought rippled through her subconscious like a tightening fist.Why shouldn’t I have something for myself?Why couldn’t she save those important to her?
As if in answer, the tide surged again, dragging her under, deeper into the abyss of every life she’d ever lived. Years she was never meant to remember tore open inside her, flooding past the fragile walls of her mind. Blades flashing. Screams cut short. Her own body breaking over and over. And worse—the faces of those she’d struck down, their eyes wide with terror, their blood warm in her mouth. Yes, the Weaving had found her, claimed her, and made her its weapon…but no hand of fate could wash away the ruin she had both endured and unleashed across millennia.
I deserve this.
The agony reminded her that the Missions had never been only a duty. They were penance. A reckoning for the death she’d left behind, for the worlds she had reduced to ash with her own hands.
“Rynna!” a voice called from the depths of the void, soft and feminine. “Rynna! Wake up!”
“Calli?”She tried to force her eyes open, but the effort unleashed torment beyond comprehension. The dull ache that had always haunted her erupted, bursting through like a dam breaking.
Her soul lay bare. If it could even be called that anymore—splintered, rotting, bleeding without end. Every fragment pulsed like an exposed nerve, raw and flayed open, unraveling in slow, merciless waves.
Is that me?The thought wavered, thin and unsteady. Near delirium, she couldn’t tell how much more she could withstand. Is that what waits beneath all the lives, all the versions of myself?
“Please, Rynna.” A different voice burst through the haze. “Please, don’t leave me. Not again.”
The sound pierced through her anguish, cutting deeper, and just like that, something in the foul remnants of her shattered soul stirred. Among the rot and decay, she saw one frayed end reach for another, as if, desperately, it still believed it could pull itself back together.
What?she wondered, even as insanity crept closer. But before it could claim her completely, the pain abruptly stopped. Or at least, it dulled, fading to a bearable ache, and the vision of her fractured soul vanished.
Cool relief seeped through her, a chilling balm revealing the truth of her existence.
The Weaving was binding the damage, holding it together just enough for her to move, to fight, to serve its Missions. But the wall was fragile. One breath, one misstep, and it could shatter, unleashing the full torment in a heartbeat.
Obedience was the price. Follow the Rules, or the Weaving would strip away even this small, merciless kindness. The amnesia was a reprieve, a thin Band-Aid covering the unspeakable damage to the very essence that made her, her. And it could all be taken away in a heartbeat.
I should be dead, at best, or insane, a monster to be put down.
She told herself she should feel grateful, proud of the work she was doing.I am,she insisted, forcing the words through the raw corners of her mind as she tested each shield in turn, searching for cracks, bracing herself to continue the Mission.
Her eyes fluttered open. Moonlight bled across a marshy clearing, silvering patches of dry earth where the water had pulled back, leaving the ground rough and split. The swamp stretched toward the horizon, the far reaches bristling with shacks on stilts—ramshackle homes long abandoned, their skeleton frames sagging above the mire.
I guess they moved me. She tried to roll onto her side, but her body rebelled. The woven tunic and leather vest cut into her shoulders, straps biting deep as if to pin her in place. But at the scuffle sounding behind her, she fought to move, muscles jerking in useless twitches until, with effort, she managed to force her head around.
Kaelith knelt over Calli, his hands gripping her throat, desperation etched into every line of his face as the young woman writhed beneath him.
“Fix her!” he snarled. “Fix her, or I swear to all the Elements, I will destroy you!”
Rynna struggled to lift her hand, to tell him she was fine, but the most she could do was a slight, involuntary spasm.
“I—” Calli gasped, her fingers clawing at his wrists, and managed to twist an opening just big enough to suck in a gulp of air. “I don’t know how to save her, you freak! She’s…she’s empty. There’s no Source, no heartbeat. I don’t know what to do!” Her voice broke, tears streaking down her face.
“You lie!” His eyes blazed as he slapped her hard across the cheek, snapping the girl’s head to the side, as she choked back a sob.
