The death hit her, sharp with fear and searing pain, that instant of awareness before it all went dark. The connection snapped, and she was utterly and completely alone, except for the fire raging in her hands, demanding an answer.
Please work. She squeezed her eyes shut as the Balefire grew hotter and heavier, sucking radiance from the stars and dust from the fractured remains of destroyed ships.
She couldn’t hold it much longer.
Her limbs trembled, muscles locking under the strain. One heartbeat more, and it would consume her.
Now.She prayed to any who would listen and hurled the Balefire forward.
It tore through space, a streak of silent black flame aimed straight for the Tear.
There was no bang or flash of light, or satisfying roar as one might expect from a weapon meant to end worlds.
Instead, there was only a feeling.
Her body convulsed, muscles seizing in a brutal heave, but nothing came—just dry, hollow gagging, her stomach too empty to offer anything up but pain. The wrongness radiating from the impact was sickening, marrow deep. And then. Then, the true horror began as it started to unravel the edges of the Weaving itself, the very foundation of life, order, and everything that stood in contrast to “nothing.”
Great Mother.
She understood, now.
She’d already known that Balefire was forbidden for very good reasons, but now she felt it, viscerally. Deep in her bones, and in the parts of her soul that remembered what it meant tobea Wise One, she understood.
Balefire should not exist.
It was anathema to the very principles her kind had upheld and protected for millennia. Even pure Darkness contained the potential for light, for rebirth or reflection, but Balefire was worse. It exposed what lay beneath the Weaving—the absolute emptiness, a place without potential or shape or meaning.
It was nothingness without end, madness with no sound.
And yet, she had summoned it.
“What have I done?” she gasped as the Wraith finally began to notice her presence.
She shuddered.
They probably found the widening tear comforting, the soulless bastards. But their surprise at seeing a Wise One materialize in their midst might’ve been amusing if she could’ve seen their faces. If they had faces.
A dry, slightly unhinged laugh stole past her lips.
Arseholes.One of her favorite human insults.
Drawing back her claws, she launched the energy core forward, muscles coiling in a perfect release.
It was almost over.
The Wraith didn’t move at first. One small dragon—alone, glowing gold, clearly insane—wasn’t enough to warrant panic.
But then they saw the core arcing through space, spinning toward the tear.
She watched as the lesser Wraith rushed to intercept, swarming protectively while the higher-level ones fled outward, not yet realizing it was already too late.
The core struck and, this time, the universe answered.
A white blaze tore through the battlefield, blinding and final.
Pain followed, slicing through her body in a pure, incandescent wave.
And then, there was nothing.
