"Do not argue," I cut her off, the sheer, crushing weight of my decision pressing into the syllables. I mask the agonizing, tearing devotion in my chest with cold, untouchable command. "You have to go. You reach the Heart-Stone, and you do not look back. That is an absolute command."
"I am not leaving you!" she protests, her voice cracking, her grip on my wrists tightening desperately. “I will die with you if it is what it takes to pay for my sins. How can you let me go? Didn’t you want to punish me? To let me suffer for hundreds of years?”
"You will go!" I roar, the volume shaking the suspended memory crystals above our heads. I force my tone to soften, a lethal, silken plea. "Mireya. Let me do this. I will end this myself."
Before she can scream her defiance again, the hinges of the vault violently shear.
The massive iron doors shatter inward with a deafening explosion. A shockwave of concussive force throws a shower of molten, glowing shrapnel across the crystalline floor. The heat is blistering. Through the smoking, jagged breach, dozens of heavily armored Vanguard enforcers pour into the room, their dark-steel boots grinding against the stone.
They fan out with military precision, their null-iron halberds lowered, forming a lethal semi-circle. Archmagister Theryn steps through the smoke, flanked by Captain Vaelor. Theryn’s heavy ironwood staff radiates a blinding, suppressive white light that immediately makes the curse in my veins scream in agony.
"Lord Khaelor," Theryn sneers, his pale eyes sweeping over the ruined vault before locking onto Mireya’s trembling formbehind me. "Hand over the Purna. She is a sanctioned threat to the Undercity. Her execution is mandated. And so is yours."
I step in front of Mireya, completely eclipsing her smaller frame, shielding her from the Archmagister’s sight.
For a century, I have maintained an iron-clad, agonizing mental cage around my own sanity, carefully metering the rot so it would not consume the world. I have held the cataclysm back with pure, suffering discipline.
I close my eyes. I find the lock on that cage, and I completely, irrevocably shatter it.
The ambient temperature of the vault incinerates. The black-gold veins on my chest erupt with an apocalyptic, blinding radiance.
"Run!" I scream over my shoulder to Mireya.
I throw both of my bare hands forward. I do not summon a targeted strike; I unleash a telekinetic snare of pure, concentrated decay. The heavy, necrotic magic explodes outward, slamming into the Vanguard perimeter. The dark-steel armor of the enforcers instantly begins to aggressively rust and warp under the suppressive pressure of my snare, binding them in place. The vanguard grunts and shouts in panic, their boots locked to the freezing crystal floor by the sheer gravity of my rotting aura.
"Take the witch!" Theryn roars, his face twisting in fury. He slams the base of his staff against the marble, sending a concentrated shockwave of kinetic, anti-magic force directly toward my chest.
I grit my teeth, bracing my feet against the stone, and force the necrotic snare tighter around the Archmagister and his struggling guards. The physical toll of fighting Theryn’s suppression magic while simultaneously holding two dozen men in place is consuming my soul, flesh, and blood. The latter begins to track from my nose, thick and black.
Mireya hesitates for a second, her horrified gaze locked on my failing form, before the raw, survival instinct overrides her. She turns and sprints for the narrow servant’s archway at the back of the vault, her boots slipping on the slick stone as she dives into the dark.
"She is escaping!" Vaelor bellows.
The Captain surges from the right flank. He drops his heavy suppression sigil, sacrificing his defense to break free of my snare. He lunges at me, his massive, anti-magic broadsword arcing directly toward my exposed throat. He expects me to draw my steel. He expects a duel.
I do not parry. I channel the absolute, untethered apex of the Blackflame rot through my right arm.
A tidal wave of liquid, black-gold fire erupts from my bare palm. It strikes Vaelor and the five enforcers rushing immediately behind him.
The reaction is instantaneous and absolute. There is no resistance. There is no clash of metal. The heavy Vanguard armor liquefies into a hissing, toxic vapor. Flesh, muscle, and bone turn instantly to weeping, black ash. Vaelor does not even have time to scream before his entire physical form is violently unwritten from existence, the blistering heat of the blast scattering his remains across the glowing, crystalline floor.
The sheer magnitude of the blast obliterates the front line, but the cost is terminal.
The unmitigated output of the unleashed curse hollows out my absolute center. The blinding gold light in my veins instantly dies, leaving thick, dead-black tracks across my ashen-violet skin. The necrotic magic, having consumed the immediate threat, turns inward to consume the host.
A ragged, wet gasp tears from my lungs. I cannot breathe.
My knees hit the crystal floor with a heavy, sickening crack.
The world violently tilts. The deafening shouts of the surviving Vanguard and the crackle of Theryn’s magic fade into a muffled, distant drone. The edges of my vision dissolve into a suffocating, encroaching gray. I collapse forward, my hands pressing weakly against the freezing stone.
I lie in the ash of the men I just slaughtered, the raw, unfiltered magic literally burning out the remaining fragments of my soul. As the dark finally rushes up to claim me, my last, desperate thought is a prayer to a dead god that she made it to the Heart-Stone.
27
MIREYA
The servant’s archway is a narrow, freezing throat of dark stone. I am ten paces into the suffocating pitch black when the rot explodes behind me.
