Valeria feels it.
Her back leaves the wall as she pushes forward, fangs bared, fury igniting in full force. The smoke that had drifted lazily around her thickens and coils, snapping tight like chains forged from vapor. It wraps her wrists, her waist, her throat, pinning her not to stone but to the space she occupies.
She snarls, a sound that once would have sent villages scattering.
“Draven,” she calls, not pleading, not begging.
A summons.
I move.
The instinct to reach her is immediate and absolute. The ground splits beneath my stride as I surge forward, and Nyx is suddenly there.
Her hand closes around my wrist.
It should meannothing.
She is smaller than I am, slighter.
But it meanseverything.
The force that radiates from her touch halts me mid-motion, not by strength, but by Law. The air around us tightens like a noose drawn slowly. My power collides with hers and slides off, redirected, absorbed.
“Stand down,” she says, her voice quiet and edged with something older than threat.
Valeria fights harder.
The smoke tightens in response, dragging her back as she tears against it, eyes wild, furious. The distortion around her deepens, light bending inward, her outline warping like heat rising from a battlefield.
“Don’t you dare!” I snarl, straining against Nyx’s hold. The ground trembles beneath us, cracks splitting outward in a violent web.
Nyx’s grip tightens. “You cannot win this,” she says. “And you willnotdefy the Law forher.”
Forher.
The words strike harder than the restraint.
Valeria’s eyes lock onto mine again, fury burning into something sharper, more concentrated. The smoke creeps higher, sealing her arms to her sides as reality begins to thin around her, pulling at her edges, unraveling her shape stitch by stitch.
“I regret nothing,” she spits, voice raw and magnificent.
The distortion swallows the last of her firelight.
For one suspended instant, I feel a violent tug beneath my ribs, a thread stretched white-hot and trembling.
Then it tears.
Or slips.
Or is pulled somewhere beyond my reach.
The space where she stands folds inward with terrible precision. The smoke releases into nothing. The stone wall stands bare. The fire rises again as though it had never faltered.
Valeria is gone.
No ash. No blood. No remains to rage against.
Only air where a storm once stood.
