The sound that leaves him is not a cry.
It’s a crack.
Like a mountain finally giving way.
Time fractures.
The SoulTakers surge, howling in triumph. The sky flares sickly green. I throw out my hands and seize the ground itself, forcing it upward in jagged walls to buy us seconds, only seconds—I reach him as he falls.
Blood—bright, impossible, shimmering with starlight—streaks his armor. His hand clamps around my wrist, fingers digging into stone-hard flesh.
“Dagan,” he rasps.
“Do not speak,” I snarl, already pouring earth-power into him, trying to knit bone, to seal the wound, to anchor his soul in place. “You are not permitted to die. I forbid it.”
He smiles.
“Bossy as ever.”
His power flares, wild and uncontrolled, lashing out in all directions. I feel it burning through my arms, searing lines of force into my bones.
For a moment, everything in Nightfall sees through him—the very core of our planet is glowing like a heartbeat below, the Tidal Lands surging, the Broken Plains blazing, the Rooted Marches shuddering under the weight of what’s coming.
“I should have chosen sooner,” he murmurs. “Should have named a successor to be Prime.”
“You are the Prime,” I growl. “You will hold.”
His gaze locks onto mine.
“Aurel, do not die!”
“You will keep Nightfall safe, yes? You and the four.”
My jaw clenches. “We can’t do this without you.”
“You must. Listen,” he whispers, and his grip tightens. “The crown was never meant to rest on one head without help. It is too much. Too tempting. Too easy to twist.”
“You can’t go.”
“It is done, old friend.”
“Then, you must name one of us,” I snap. “Alaric. Kael. Thorne. Me. Any of us. But do not leave Nightfall without a Prime!”
His eyes go distant then, beyond me, beyond the battlefield.
“Not one,” he breathes. “Four.”
I do not understand.
I do not have the luxury.
His power surges one last time—rushing into me, burning down my spine, branding itself into the bedrock of the Rooted Marches.
I feel him leave, like a star going out, like a pillar torn from the heart of the world.
“No,” I snarl, shaking him. “NO!”
But the Prime is already gone.
