The word struck like a blade. The Resh’Agar’s head jerked up. More azure mist poured from his lips, curling like smoke from a dying forge. His gaze locked on Zarrek, inhuman, blinding, the storm itself answering his fury.
He raised his forearm. The dagger at his waist flashed. Steel bit skin. Blood lifted into the air, but it did not fall—it spun. It twisted upward in arcs, forming runes throbbing with sickening light. The Crucible Yards howled with the force of it, reality itself bending to his will.
Behind him, the air split. A portal ripped jagged and raw through the marble, its edges burning azure, spilling frost and fire in equal measure. From its depths—screams. Echoes of agony, torn from somewhere no mortal should hear.
The Resh’Agar’s voice rumbled, each word slow, distorted, carried on a breath of mist. But it wasn’t his voice alone.
“S H E… calls …”
The sound shook the air, more echo than speech, as if the storm itself had learned to speak. He stepped through the portal, the cataclysm following in his wake.
57
Retribution
The pain broke her mind.
Everything shattered.
Time.
Space.
Understanding.
Agony seared through her veins, boiling her blood, melting her skin. Her body bucked against the wall, cuffs biting cruelly into her wrists, deadening her magic.
The Iron pressed closer.
Heat brushed skin.
And something inside her—
—snapped.
Not clean like glass.
Like stone.
Splitting.
Crumbling.
Shattering.
Her eyes flew open—no longer silver.
Molten gold surged in their place, liquid fire burning through her.
She heaved, trembling, and then—
The cuffs burst.
Thunder cracked.
Magic erupted in a pulse—hurling Reskala across the chamber like rag dolls.
The Godblind shrieked as it scraped across marble, spinning away.
