COME CLOSER.
I CAN SMELL YOUR FEAR FOR HER.
BRING THE WALL DOWN. JUST A LITTLE MORE…JUST ANOTHER STEP…
SET ME FREE!
And then it hit him.
A spike of agony tore through the Bond. Ribs screaming, breath shorn away. His vision blurred red. His heart lurched with her descent, the echo of her impact tearing through him as though his own bones had splintered.
Below, his control over the crowd buckled as he rushed to slam the walls closed once more. Vargrún's voice faded, but his power snaked through his veins like rivers of flame.
Screams of panic erupted once more among the worshippers. Not even their natural tether to the Flaeme could restrain their shrieks and terror. Some ran, trampling innocents beneath their heels. Thrassus guided his warriors to hold order, but nothing they did could halt the sharply rising chaos. Some worshippers dropped to their knees before the Prismatum—praying to the Destroyer to save his own, praying to the Resh’Agar to intervene.
They pointed to something on the ground.
Cold sweat broke out on the Resh’Agar’s nape when he saw a gaping hole there leading down into some kind of pit. Some of the worshippers tried to jump inside, shrieking, “Sokâr! Radiance!”
Those not fighting Solutus tried to stop the men and women—even child Apprentices—from throwing themselves into the pit, but the rebels left them little time for distraction.
Shu’Khan stepped closer. For a single breath, the Sovereign Flame no longer looked like a statue, or a god, or a dream made flesh.
He lookedfurious. A fracture in a glacier. Cold. Vast. Eternal.
“Go to her, Iridias,” he murmured. “Bring her home.”
The Resh’Agar turned—swift and silent—fury trailing behind him like smoke. At the far edge of the balcony, he drew a black crystal dagger from his waist. Without hesitation, he dragged the edge across his forearm, forming a ghostly cut. Deep. Deliberate. Blood met mana. Golden-blue sparks flew.
With one hand, he reached through the fabric of the Veil and tore a portal into existence—the jagged, sparking tear howling with power. It moaned, fractured the air, snapped like a storm wind through the lattice around him.
The air howled louder than the Onyx Horns ever had.
The balcony exploded in a shower of broken stone, scorching mana, and flying rubble. The Resh’Agar towered like a battlement, Morvane glowing blue with rage, his thick onyx cloak flying and snapping behind him in the wind. The half mask on his face came alive, the fanged maw snarling with its owner’s god-like fury.
But the world didn’t comply with his will fast enough. The portal opened too slowly. And so, his eyes burst into flames of blue and aquamarine, fire pouring from them as he reached out with both hands and sunderedeverything.
The air.
The Veilweave.
The world.
He violated all the laws of nature. Ripped reality apart. The portal opened to its full breadth. Not amber like the sanctioned transport systems used throughout the city, but crimson. Unnatural. Unholy. Like the rifts that carried Varkhounds during the Cycle of Dark.
Yet—despite this feat which should have only been the purvey of the gods—the Resh’Agar did not make a single sound. Did not look pleased or angered. Only focused. Impartial as the Void, his gaze razor-sharp with purpose as he stepped into the tear and vanished.
In moments, the air beside the final beacon on the plaza screamed as it was rent in twain. The Arm of the Void stepped out, Morvane agleam with nether residue. His black hair flew behind him in an inky curtain, and his fanged mask bore its maw in warning to any who would stop him.
He looked down into the pit, unbothered by the screaming people, the fighting Reskala, the flying magic, or the sudden explosion somewhere far behind him on the dais of the Prismatum.
His eyes narrowed, searching.
Until he sawher.
He ripped off his mask, his broad chest heaving, and bellowed—
“Auryn!”
