Zira tears through three fighters at once, fury incarnate, but for every one she drops, two more press forward.
We’re losing.
I crawl faster, ignoring the pain screaming through every nerve.
Then I see him.
Ethos stands in front of Bree, close enough to whisper. That same predatory calm. That same certainty.
Until somethinghitshim.
He stiffens. The smugness cracks.
For a breath I think it’s her—some buried surge finally breaking free—but then I see him twist, light in his chest pulledoutwardinstead of in.
My gaze snaps to the shadows near the sanctuary wall.
Seth.
On his feet now, arm outstretched, veins lit like cracks in glass. Void energy coils from Ethos’s body toward his hand—black threads laced with silver, writhing like living things.
The wrongness of that power slams into me: cold, endless,hungry.
He’s doing to Ethos what Ethos did to Bree.
Pulling the Void itself out of him.
A shout cuts through the noise.
I turn—
Riley bursts from the treeline.
Her magic hits the ground first—half silver, half black, streaming from her palms like mirrored smoke. The air bends around her, the two colors fighting and then twisting together as she runs straight into the battlefield.
She doesn’t slow. Doesn’t hesitate.
She slams both hands down.
The black-silver Ether races across the soil like wildfire, reaching the wounded. Some stabilize immediately—gasping, eyes clearing. Others just stop dying.
The shift is instant. Tangible.
She’shealingthem.
I drag myself the last few feet, tasting blood, the earth vibrating beneath me from the Void tug-of-war happening twenty feet away.
Ethos screams.
Not loud—but ancient. A sound that splits the air and makes every instinct I have screamrun.
I reach Bree’s boots. Look up into her eyes—still locked, still trapped—and force the words out.
“Hold on,” I rasp. “We’ve got you.”
Her gaze flickers. Just barely. Like she heard me through the paralysis.
The battlefield shakes.
