Abolisher
27.

His chest stopped.

Syrene watched, as blood colored his shirt—right through his heart. Watched, as he toppled to the ground. Watched, as his chest rose slowly, once, and then just … stopped. His body went limp.

There was a pain throbbing in her own chest, a crucifying agony she’d never felt before. Even as it was dull—there was only a sense of it.

But there was another pain—a pain so deep that she didn’t think she would ever heal. She felt as her spirit tore apart and anguish pierced it. She heard as her soul cleaved open, and hollowness poured out of her. She didn’t know if she was screaming, or was it just the sound of her breaking.

Syrene found she couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see anything other than his lifeless form. The world still and silent around her. Air had ceased to exist. Drothiker had shut up—or maybe drowned out by the piercing ringing in her head, she didn’t know. Didn’t care.

It felt as if her skin had been peeled off, or some precious part of her was missing. A presence she’d never known of, but now she felt its absence after it’d departed. A wound was yawning open inside her—she felt it; a hole that went deeper than skin and bone.

She didn’t know what was happening. She didn’t know if she was alive. She couldn’t think, couldn’t feel.

Then a sound ripped from her throat—a cry so raw, so sorrowful, that she didn’t even recognize it.

Was she dying? What was happening—

Dead—Azryle was dead.

She reached inside herself, went looking for his power that’d always lingered within her since Feast of Melodies. Went into that terminal abyss. But all she found was an empty dark.

Dead.

Alone.

Gnawing.

She dreaded it like she’d nothing before. Something—there must be something—something to help her survive this ending, this breaking—

She went in search for the Thread of Life—the one she’d seen the day she’d died—the one she could clutch and hold on to—

But there was nothing.

Something—there must be something—

A chuckle tore through the bellowing in her head. A chuckle—from the world outside, a world she was falling away from—

There—in the dark void—something gleamed.

She aimed for it.

The closer she went, the louder that sense of the foreign world grew. The louder that chuckle grew, until she could feel it rattling her bones, echoing in her blood and soul. In this empty abyss.

The glowing thread wasn’t a thread after all. But a door. Light leaked from its edges

Light, so blinding, that the darkness around her disappeared, and she felt as if she stood in a moon.

You have come after all, a voice echoed. I have been waiting.

“Help,” she pled. “Help me.”

Your mejest is wounded, it said, so you come to me. And what of when it isn’t, Heir of Grinon?

“Help …”

What you request is preposterous.

“No … no, it can’t be—”

Half your soul was never yours, Starblood. You gave it to that which is long dead. It’s unregainable.

“No, please,” she begged. “Heal me. I’ll—I’ll do anything.”

It hummed, considering. Then, I cannot heal your bleeding soul, hemvae. Neither can I bring back the lost. But I can offer a salve to dull the eternal pain. Do you accept it?

“Yes,” she hurled out. “Yes, I’ll take it.”

A laugh. So cold that it could’ve frozen a mountain. Nothing comes without a price, Heir of Grinon. You ought to be aware of that.

“I’ll pay whatever the price.”

The costs of paying unknown price are always too high, do you not wish to know before you accept?

“No.” She didn’t think she could bear this agony any longer. “I don’t.”

She felt it grinning, whatever it was. Felt its delight like a dagger wedged bone-deep in her body. She cringed.

Very well. Open the door, then, Syrene Evreyan Alpenstride, and let us be free.

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