“Alina—NO—” he bellows, but his voice breaks on my name like it hurts.
“I’m here,” I shout back, throat raw. “I’m not letting you do this alone!”
A SoulTaker swings at me.
Dagan’s stone spikes shoot up and impale it mid-leap.
His eyes never leave mine.
He’s bleeding.
He’s exhausted.
His magic flickers around the edges like a storm running out of sky.
Idris is already turning toward us, realizing—too late—what the crown has become.
His face twists.
“No,” he hisses. “You can’t?—”
“Oh yes, I can you sonovabitch,” I snarl under my breath, and I’m shocked by the sound of it.
The ferocity. The certainty.
Because the earth under my boots agrees with me.
I slam into Dagan’s space like a collision.
His hand catches my waist—too tight, too desperate—like if he lets go I’ll vanish.
I lift the pendant.
He stares at it like it’s a miracle and a weapon in one.
“Oona,” he breathes, voice wrecked.
“Trust me,” I whisper.
Then I press it to him.
Not just to his skin.
To mine, too.
My palm on his chest. The pendant between us.
A shared conduit.
A bridge.
The moment the artifact touches us both—touches all four Lords and their viyellas—Nightfall answers.
Power detonates through the bond like a quake finally releasing.
Green-gold light erupts from Dagan’s chest, racing across his tattoos and into his wings, turning every obsidian feather into a blade of living stormlight.
The ground beneath us locks into place—fault lines sealing, stone knitting, roots surging up like a living army.
