"Stay with me." His voice came out rough. Desperate. "Don't you dare leave me."
The last fiber began to tear.
Dante stopped thinking.
Stopped questioning.
Just acted.
He reached deep inside himself. Past the control. Past the restraint. Past a lifetime of discipline.
Reached for the core of what he was.
And he let his power flow.
Not to take away.
But to give.
LXXIX.
BRYNN
She couldn't find her edges.
That was the first thing that was off. She'd always known where she ended and the world began. You had to, as a thief. Knowing the exact space your body occupied. Every finger. Every breath.
Now there was nothing to find. She was edgeless. Formless. Aware without being anything at all.
Just consciousness floating in nothing.
Was this death?
The memories came slowly. Disconnected. Fragmented.
Caelum's attack. Golden light blazing toward her chest. His face twisted with rage. His voice:neither shall you have your architect.
The impact. Pain exploding through her chest, so much pain it erased everything except the knowledge that she was ending.
Then nothing.
Then this.
She tried to feel her body. Couldn't. Couldn't even remember what "feeling" meant when you had nothing to feel with.
Tried to open her eyes. Had no eyes.
Tried to move her hands. Had no hands. No form. Nothing to move.
Dead, then. Or dying. Or caught somewhere between.
Forces were pulling at her.
Multiple directions at once.
Reaching for her from different places. Trying to claim her. Trying to tear pieces away like she was something to be divided.
Her awareness was fragmenting. She could feel it happening. The sense ofIbecomingwebecomingpieces, her thoughts starting to run in different directions at once, memories already beginning to sort themselves into piles for different destinations. Here, the violence. There, the obsession. Somewhere else, the unfinished business. Parts of her being catalogued for distribution.
