4

R ebecca couldn’t believe what she was seeing through the swirling shards of white light and the heat blistering her face and hands.

She certainly wouldn’t have expected Shade’s healer to be here, outside the compound, beyond what little safety its walls still provided. Let alone at the very center of this.

But now that she saw it, it couldn’t be unseen. Everything made sense.

This was Zida’s magic, burning through the night sky and the hundreds of griybreki that had already attempted to get as close as Rebecca stood now. Like Bor, Earl, and all the others left behind at Headquarters, Zida had emerged to join the fight. To do what had to be done. To protect their home, no matter how long it had been since the old daraku had diverted from her vows as a healer.

Now, she was single-handedly responsible for holding off the bulk of Eduardo’s siege.

But not for much longer.

Zida stood against the violent storm of her own power, her tiny fang-like teeth fully exposed in an endless snarl of effort and fury. The woman’s arms stretched out wide to either side, trembling visibly as she drew all this awesome and terrifying power out of herself to hold thousands of griybreki at bay.

Both the eye of the storm and the source of it.

But Zida was old, not nearly as strong or capable of withstanding her own magic like this as she once might have been. Her ability to maintain control over her own immense power was already quickly waning.

As if in response to this realization, the storm shuddered again with a chaotic flicker before launching more randomly striking bolts of white-hot light than ever before. The earth trembled and groaned beneath the awful force quickly losing stability.

Zida’s hold over it all faded even faster, and Rebecca almost thought she was too late.

Somehow, though, the old healer redoubled her efforts with a violent shout Rebecca couldn’t hear over the storm’s howling. But the trembling and flickering stopped, once more temporarily soothed as the healer drew more strength from yet another hidden, untapped reserve of it.

Until she reached the very last of it and spent it all up. That would happen very soon.

A massive bolt of searing light crackled away from Zida’s body and up through the storm, jerking erratically before it finally released itself. It cracked against the side of the compound building with a thunderous crash.

A massive chunk of the outer wall broke away, barely heard over the shouts of the Shade members still inside and down below warning others to get out of the way.

Shit.

Rebecca really hadn’t considered she would find one of her own inside this storm, or how it might have factored into what still had to be done.

“Zida!” The raw, destructive power around her seared her throat, and even when she tried again to shout the healer’s name, her voice was still swallowed by the storm’s constant, deafening roar.

Whether the old healer noticed her didn’t matter anymore.

Zida’s unleashed power or no, this storm would still reach its breaking point, and very soon.

Rebecca couldn’t make the old woman stop. Nothing could. But she could still keep the inevitable eruption from destroying everyone and everything surrounding Headquarters. That part hadn’t changed.

She could still save them.

And she’d have to trust that the rest of her task force could handle their own survival just a little longer until Rebecca managed the rest.

She had to get there.

Only when she took her next step did the next boundary within so many churning layers of the storm make itself known to her. She moved through the glow and snarled beneath the instant influx of searing heat and centrifugal force nothing else could have withstood it.

Debris whipped around her too quickly to recognize, the heat stinging her skin and setting off every instinctual alarm of survival. The fiery blaze buffeting against her almost threw her off balance, but Rebecca thrust the head of her Bloodshadow spear into the asphalt to hold herself steady.

Nothing would turn her back.

Even as she used her spear to keep her footing with every slow, harrowing step forward, all the heat and light and the blistering, swirling force of Zida’s magic fought against her. As if it wanted nothing but to turn her back and keep her away.

Which was the whole point.

Rebecca fought against all of it as she pushed herself forward, step by agonizing step. She couldn’t stay upright and fight against the unstable magic at the same time, even if it hadn’t been Zida at the center of it all.

The heat and bone-crushing power worsened by the second, but she kept pushing. All time and progress disappeared until she thought she’d almost gotten used to the pain.

Then she noticed the blackened strips of charred flesh along her arms and the layers of skin disintegrating along the backs of her fingers to blow away in the whipping wind. A wind hotter and more searing than any natural force on either world, as far as she knew.

At this rate, the storm would kill her far before she reached the healer teetering on the edge of her own self-control.

It seemed she couldn’t have moved any slower toward that center, but when the blistering heat forced Rebecca to draw on her healing magic with every step—reknitting flesh and muscle and sinew just fast enough to keep from being stripped down to the bone—the speed of her approach was cut in half.

And still, she pushed forward through all of it, every inch of her burning beneath this magic and Rebecca’s own determination to continuously heal herself.

When she cried out, she never heard it. If anything else had existed with her inside this layer of the storm, it had already been destroyed.

Then she saw it.

The brightest point of all within the churning storm of light and heat.

That had to be the center. Just a few steps farther…

If it wasn’t, she was screwed.

Just before she reached that center, the storm let out another thunderous groan and shudder, vibrating around her.

Rebecca pushed herself forward, every muscle straining against the magic forcing her back. Her hands were now numb around the glinting shaft of her spear thrust through the asphalt to leverage her forward.

Another deafening crack cut through everything else before a massive bolt of light skewered jaggedly up into the storm and smashed back down again.

The agony of it crashing into Rebecca’s shoulder was unlike anything she’d felt in such a very long time, but the all-consuming pain of it was instantly familiar.

Screaming, Rebecca launched herself forward with a new burst of strength and staggered into the heart of the storm.

The scent of cooking flesh overwhelmed her, battling with the mind-numbing pain until she straightened enough to look down at the wound.

The bolt had burned the top of her shoulder down to the bone, leaving behind a ragged, gaping hole still sizzling at its center within a charred and blackened ring.

Blinking away the tears that only blurred her vision, Rebecca blew away the final tendrils of smoke rising from her flesh and noticed the burnt-red tint to every inch of her visible skin. Her entire body burned and stung, every inch of her fighting for more attention.

She lifted a hand above her blistered shoulder and let her healing magic take over. The renewed burst of agonizing fire shooting down her arm made her cry out again, but it only meant she’d been successful.

Muscle and flesh knitted back together beneath that golden glow from her palm, which now seemed duller than ever beneath blinding white enshrouding everything else around her.

She didn’t have time to heal herself completely, but what she had managed would do for now.

Breathing heavily and unsure whether her pained tears had receded or merely slid down her cheeks, unfelt beneath the oppressive heat, she looked up and finally realized where she was.

The very center of the vortex. The opposite of everything she had just endured to get here.

The near-perfect silence was eerie in comparison, the chaos of the raging battle outside completely shut out now. The only other sound beyond Rebecca’s own haggard breath was a warm, buzzing hum that deviated neither in volume nor in pitch.

The pure white light still remained, but without all the violence through which she had just pushed.

It was calm, here. Peaceful, even.

Rebecca might have believed the illusion if it weren’t for Zida standing directly in front of her.

The healer’s arms were still spread wide to either side, her limbs trembling with effort as her magic vibrated through her from head to toe. With that thrumming vibration came a constant strobe from within the old daraku. The same brilliant white glare lit her up from the inside.

Her usual attire of a large, shapeless, sack-like dress—of which she owned a wide variety—had already been affected by the surge of her magic. Most of it had burned away, the sleeves almost nonexistent and the hem charred and torn to strips inches above the daraku’s knees. What remained whipped about her body in a breeze that didn’t exist.

All of it had slowly been burning away this whole time, but it wouldn’t last much longer.

Zida’s hair, though—the thin, colorless whisps that had barely covered her nearly bald head before—was entirely gone.

All visible signs of Zida’s age had disappeared. Not that she looked young again, exactly. Not even that she looked old or anything in between.

The daraku had become something not of this world.

She always had been.

Rebecca took another small, hesitantly staggering step toward the healer before finally noticing Zida’s eyes, and the sight made her stop.

She’d grown so used to the woman’s beady black eyes constantly squinting from within her wrinkled face that the sight of them now made her stop.

The black no longer existed. Now, in its place, the piercing white blaze of Zida’s magic had completely taken over, forming blindingly bright orbs of pure white. The light surged not only from her eyes but out of her sockets in bright twin streams, as if the healer had abandoned her physical form and no longer possessed eyes at all.

As if she’d turned herself into a fucking star, and that star was now on the edge of burning up all her lighter density before going supernova and imploding.

That was exactly what was happening.

The stark realization was monumental. Historical, even, under any other circumstances.

Rebecca would have given herself a moment to let the full implication of what she now saw fully sink in. But there simply wasn’t time.

Then, as if she’d known all along this would eventually happen, Zida turned her pure-white eyes onto Rebecca and let out a soft, wry chuckle.

Even her voice didn’t sound like a voice anymore. Just raw, unbridled power transformed into sound and the words they created.

“You look like shit, kid.”

Despite the remnant burns she’d sustained still blazing across her skin, not fully healed, hearing Zida speak to her now like this sent a frigid shudder clawing down Rebecca’s spine.

She shrugged. “I’m getting used to it.”

With another staggering step toward the center of this peaceful inner ring, she couldn’t stop staring, awed by the immense magic this woman possessed and how willing Zida had been and still was to use it.

Now, she used it a last resort. For Shade.

Even though she had to know doing so would end her when the last of her control burned up and her power had nothing left to keep it in line.

“Why are you here?” Zida asked, her voice trembling with the effort of what would otherwise have been a casual conversation while attempting to sustain this storm of her magic.

Rebecca took the chance and stumbled forward another few steps. The gentle patter of something dripping to the ground beside her seemed disproportionately loud in this place, but it made her pause.

She looked down at her side, found an open wound that must have come from one of those lightning bolts or a griybreki’s lucky slash Rebecca hadn’t even felt. She hovered a palm over the heavily bleeding gash beneath her ribs and only gave herself two seconds to heal the worst of it, gritting her teeth against the next flare of pain.

More like an annoying tickle after having pushed her way through the layers of this vortex to get here.

She stared numbly at the hole in her shirt through which she healed herself—a jagged ring lined in charred cloth.

It had to have been one of those lightning bolts, then.

With a weary chuckle of her own, she plucked at the hole in her shirt so the old daraku could see it. “ Someone’s gotta reimburse me for new clothes. Now I know exactly where to send the bill.”

Zida’s wheezing cackle filled the silent stillness. Its rhythm and cadence sounded like her despite the unnatural timber changed by her magic.

The worst part was her mouth didn’t even move to make the sound.

Rebecca realized it never had.

By the Blood, this woman was one insanely powerful daraku. More so than Rebecca had ever assumed. Definitely more than she’d given the healer credit for.

Then a heavy, trembling sigh escaped the old woman’s motionless mouth. “You should’ve stayed out there. You should’ve gotten everyone else out and run for the fucking hills.”

Rebecca took another step toward her, battling between the urgency to do what had to be done and her growing concern. If she made any sudden moves or upset the healer in any way, she might set off this inevitable magical bomb before she could do anything about it.

“That would mean leaving you behind,” she replied, gazing into those off-putting eyes of pure light and white-hot fire. “And where the hell am I gonna find another healer from the old world who can patch me up and call my bullshit at the same time?”

“Ha! Not in Chicago, that’s for damn sure.”

Rebecca couldn’t help but share a worn, haggard laugh with the old woman in front of her burning herself up from the inside. They both knew what this was. How much time they didn’t have left.

They both knew what Zida was sacrificing to keep Shade whole in the face of this enemy attack.

Still, Rebecca crept closer.

The old woman tilted her head, her stare on Rebecca heavy and ominous, unlike anything Rebecca had felt from anyone else before. “You might have another thirty seconds left, kid.”

“And you might have another thirty years.”

“Huh. I’m too old for mights and maybes, elf. I’ve seen enough of two worlds to last a dozen generations. Too many lifetimes for me, if I’m being shamelessly honest. And why the hell not, at this point?

“Out of the whole damn thing, this fucking factory and everyone in it are the closest thing I’ve found to home. If it takes a Shi’il Taaríth to keep those fuckers from getting their grubby webbed fingers on any of it, so be it.”

Shi’il Taaríth … Xaharí for dying star .

That was pretty fucking accurate for what the daraku had become, and only now did Rebecca fully understand the phrase she’d heard tossed around in her younger years. A concept she could only have imagined until now.

Zida’s wheezing cackle in a voice that wasn’t completely hers, from a mouth that never opened, filled the heart of the storm. “Guess I got a little too big for my britches, huh? Waited too long to pull out the end-all, be-all. Let me tell you something. Fifty years ago, this would’ve been glorious.”

The smile flickering across Rebecca’s lips surprised her. “It’s still fucking glorious. Trust me.”

“Well, I suppose I better. You’re putting a lot more trust in me than I can hold for the two of us, I can tell you that right now.”

“You’re doing great.” Rebecca took the final step toward the healer until they stood close enough to touch, which was exactly what she meant to do, reaching slowly toward the old woman’s shoulders with both hands. “We’re still here.”

“Not for much longer…” Zida’s blazing all-white eyes bored into Rebecca’s, almost too bright to look at directly. “Don’t start lying to me now, kid. I’m too old for that shit, but I can still see those lies written all over your face.”

“I’m surprised you can see anything right now.”

A wary snort of wry amusement escaped the old woman’s motionless mouth.

No matter how much this process had changed her, no matter how much the old daraku believed she was at the end, this was still Zida, through and through.

Which meant they still had a chance.

Before Rebecca could fully settle her hands onto the woman’s shoulders, another shrieking howl split through the eerily calm heart of the storm, followed instantly by a bellowing rumble of warning somewhere beyond this peaceful center.

Asphalt cracked and splintered beneath the growing pressure. A blaze of crackling white bolts erupted all along the center’s spinning outer ring, zapping chaotically in every direction and obliterating whatever they touched.

Rebecca couldn’t see any of it, but she knew it was happening.

The growing instability was worse than ever now, especially when they could hear it within the rare haven Zida’s unleashed power had created for her at its very heart.

For the first time, a real expression revealed itself on Zida’s otherworldly face, her hairless brows drawing together in concern, her lips turning down at the corners of her mouth. “You should’ve gotten out, Knox.”

The light blazing from within her body brightened and intensified, bringing with it the certainty that this was the end.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you for getting out,” Zida added. Only now did the healer truly sound as exhausted and spent as she must have been. “Don’t blame you for showing up at the last second, either. You’ve made a hell of a habit out of that.”

Rebecca smirked and offered a blatant shrug as she held Zida’s blinding gaze. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Healer. I showed up right on time.”

The woman’s next laugh was hardly a laugh at all—dark and scratchy, rippling with thousands of dissonant notes all at once while the last of her self-control seeped out of her and her body trembled with the final remnants of what little energy and will she still had. “Do something for me, yeah? Tell that old goat of giveldi—”

“I’m your Roth-Da’al, Zida,” Rebecca interrupted. “Not the fucking messenger.”

There was so very little time left, Rebecca had to act now .

She leaned closer and muttered, “Tell him your own damn self.”

Then she clapped both hands down onto Zida’s shoulders and drew the woman roughly toward her before wrapping the healer in a tight, excruciating embrace.

With all the violence and agony of wrapping her arms around a star.

An enormous, blistering crack split through the air. The earth bucked beneath them, throwing them aside.

The next deafening, world-shattering explosion ripped through Rebecca’s awareness and drowned out everything else as fire and agony and nothing but pure white light seared through her entire being all at once.

And still, she didn’t let go.

Even if it burned her up to nothing, she would not let go.