Gabriel’s hands fisted in Viktor’s hair, forehead bowed to his temple.
“He’s gone. He’s—”
His voice broke.
He lifted his head and screamed into the storm once more:
“Midnight!”
Storne’s gaze cut upward, rage snapping into command.
His voice struck like an anvil:
“MIDNIGHT!”
The ground trembled.
Lightning crawled glass into thin, stalking veins. The storm itself seemed to draw breath, holding, waiting. Cold poured over the flats, sharp enough to bite bone.
And then the shadow fell.
White eyes opened—sightless, yet fixed. Every step he took was faultless, as if the ground itself whispered where to bear his weight.
The Midnight.
The stone at his throat blaze white, identical to the one clenched in Viktor’s hand. Each flare lit the torn planes of his face in stark silver, as if the storm itself remembered him.
He dropped to his knees beside the body. Fingers hovered, never fumbling, never lost. Blind, yet precise. He felt for Viktor’s chest, for the air that wasn’t there, for the heartbeat that had fled.
“Back.”
His voice was calm, sharp, unquestionable. Seventeen years, yet older than time itself.
“All of you—back.”
Gabriel’s fists were still locked in Viktor’s hair.
“Do something—”
The Midnight’s hand clasped his wrist, firm as iron.
“Loose him.”
For one heartbeat Gabriel resisted. Then, shaking, he let go. Storne bowed his head, jaw rigid, and shifted aside.
The Midnight bent low, the glow in his eyes brightening. His lips moved, not in the tongue of men, but in the jagged chant of the ancients—rough syllables that scraped like stone on stone, each one vibrating the air. Lightning twitched across his mouth, sparking down to his hands.
He pressed one palm to the stone at Viktor’s chest, the other against his slack jaw. Stormfire laced his veins, crawling out in white cracks that lit the air.
The necklace stone pulsed in answer, feeding light into his grip. The chant rose, faster, louder, until his whole body shuddered with it.
And then—
he struck.
Hands slammed against Viktor’s chest.
The shock split the air like thunder.
