He froze, breath tearing shallow. His vision swam. His chest heaved.Where wasSHE? Where hadSHEgone?
Something cracked.
Inside him.
Deep within.
A fracture that bled light and storm into every vein, every breath.
Something answered the silence.
Forged to protect.
Forged to serve.
Forged to obey.
And now—asSHEcalled—
It opened its eyes truly for the first time.
56
His Numen's Call
Blood streaked down Lu’ma’s forearms where Reskala steel had split her skin, but she did not feel it. Nothing mattered except finding His Quintessence.
Her Radiance was gone—stolen. Shackled. Blindfolded.
Her feet hammered the stone, braid unraveling, tunic torn. She crashed into the Resh’Agar’s wing—empty. Panic clawed her throat. She ran harder. The Umbral Archives: silent. The Axis Hall: empty. The training ring: dust. Empty.
She collapsed to her knees in the sparring ring, pounding the floor, screaming voicelessly.
Footsteps. Zarrek. His eyes swept her bloodied form, his face hardening.
“What happened?”
Her hands flew. 'Reskala. Tribunal. They took her. '
Zarrek tore the key-sigil from his neck. Light split the air. The world folded, and a portal tore open into the Varrow District. Within, the Crucible Yards should have been alive with drills, sparring steel, the bark of commanders.
Instead—chaos. Shouts. Weapons abandoned. Recruits scattered like frightened birds. The air churned, thick with smoke and blue fire.
The Resh’Agar’s magic was spiraling. Raw power tore through the ring in waves, lifting sand and ash into a storm stinging skin and eyes.Runes seared across the air like brands, flickering in and out of control. The ground itself groaned beneath the weight of him, fissures spidering through the marble floor.
Zarrek halted at the threshold, every instinct warning him back. But Lu’ma didn’t even pause. She ran headlong into the storm, her braid whipping, her arms bleeding, her eyes wide and half-mad with desperation. She pushed through the whirling mana and seized the Resh’Agar by the wrist.
Her blood smeared his skin.
'Resh’Agar—! Quintessence!'Her hands signed furiously, almost incoherent with panic. 'Her Radiance taken! Shackled! Tribunal! '
He looked down at her. Blue light bled from his eyes, so bright it seared. As he spoke, blue mist curled from his lips like vapor from a forge.
“Where is…S H E…” The last word broke like thunder, elongated, inhuman.
Zarrek hurled himself into the maelstrom, cloak whipping, cobblestones lifting and splintering around him. Blue fire spat from the ground, runes crackling like lightning across the walls. He ducked a flying slab of stone, shouldered through a gust of mana that seared his skin, and bellowed through the roar:
“Tribunal! Resh—get to herNOW!”
