My vision blurred at the edges, and I sucked in a breath—no, several shallow ones—because Kaelith wasn’t just evolving.
She was feeding.
Off me.
My magic. My core. My everything.
Kaelith… stop…
She didn’t respond.
I could feel her in my veins, her fire burning through me like molten Stormlight, and I realized with bone-deep certainty?—
She hadn’t just chosen to show them who she was.
She’d chosen to become what they feared.
And I didn’t know if I had the strength to stop her.
“You’re killing her. Rein it in, now!” Zander’s voice cracked like a whip across the Ascension Grounds.
The words punched through the haze.
Kaelith’s head snapped toward him, smoke curling from her nostrils in a warning. Her eyes blazed, molten violet with fury and something else—something wounded. She growled low and deep, a sound that vibrated through the marrow of my bones.
But Hein stepped forward.
This time, he wasn’t backing down.
He came to stand beside Zander, his massive silver bulk grounded and sure, his presence a wall of steel and restraint. His wings flared wide, and a single gutturalhuffrumbled from his chest, not a challenge, but a demand.
That’s enough.
Kaelith’s eyes shifted. From Hein, to Zander, then finally… to me.
My body was shaking. My breath barely coming. My magic felt like it had been wrung out of me like a cloth soaked in flame. I forced myself to meet her gaze, even as my knees began to buckle beneath me.
She blinked.
Once.
And something in her expression fractured. The fierce glow in her eyes dulled, her wings dipped ever so slightly. She looked surprised.
As if she hadn’t realized.
As if she hadn’t known what she was doing to me.
Her magic recoiled from mine like a tide yanked back by the moon. The tether that had burned white-hot moments ago suddenly quieted—dimmed to a soft thrum in the back of my chest.
Ashe…
Her voice in my mind was tentative, uncertain. There was no pride in it. No fury. Only confusion. Regret.
I took a shaky breath, dropping to one knee and planting my hand on the stone, grounding myself as the spinning world began to slow.
“I’m okay,” I rasped, more to Kaelith than anyone else.
Zander was already at my side, his hand bracing my arm, his expression torn between rage and worry. “She didn’t know,” I said softly. “She didn’t mean to.”
