Chapter 38

Nerys plummeted to earth with a heart-rending cry, obliterating the culprit on the way down. She touched the ground amidst his ruins, and launched herself forth with frantic energy. A heartbeat before Jordan and Norae, she reached Calyx's side.

It was too late.

Calyx, fighting to pull breath into her non-existent lungs, stared up at her in desperate silence. Nerys took her hand, crushing her fingers, begging her not to die. But Calyx had nothing left; she closed her struggling mouth, accepting she had no last breath to take. She rolled her head, finding Jordan, and a single tear escaped her. The hurt was too great. She blinked, giving in to the darkness. The spark faded from her eyes as her shattered heart thrummed its last, and then she was limp in Nerys' arms.

Nerys threw her head back and unleashed a primordial howl. Her magic snaked out in frantic ribbons, fighting her, fighting the world, angry and unwilling to accept the truth. Clouds raced in, low and scudding, hounded by ominous thunder. Black lightning flashed, and an unholy pressure began to build. A whipping wind, winter-cold and brittle, buffeted the landscape with a blood-curdling wail. Nerys turned her head, seeking Jordan. Her eyes turned black, inky, bottomless. Her mouth twisted; savage fangs bared. The tortured expression on her face chased ice down Jordan's spine, and she yelped in terror as the Lat'Nemele flung herself at her. Nerys caught her by the shoulders, shrieking at her.

"Return her to me, Jordenna! Return her to me!"

She spun from Jordan, lifted her hands in terrible claws. The world rumbled in dark threat as she sucked power from the very heart of Andoherra. Pure magic wailed from its rocky bones in torrents, and, with a gut-wrenching cry, she raised her fists. Her face twisted with the pain of the effort as she dragged it free, gathering it into a sinister mass of terrible, volatile power. She screamed as she plunged her hands down.

Impossible.

Unstoppable.

She tore open the sky.

An appalling howling rent the air. Black fissures crackled across the heavens, searing them asunder. A gigantic maw of darkness loomed, frenzied storm winds driven before it. Merciless, they tore at the feeble bodies of the living as they raced.

Terrified by the inconceivable darkness consuming the sky, Jordan made to cover her face with her hands. But a flash made her look up, into the whirling breach. High above, and rising, she made out the limp, otherworldly outline of Calyx's soul. Her jaw dropped and she pointed frantically. Nerys, black eyes pouring darkness, followed her gaze.

"Return her to me, Jordenna!" she commanded, the malice in her tone undercutting the scream of the gale, "Do it now!"

Jordan quavered beneath her fearsome regard, tried to say she couldn't, that she didn't know how. Nerys turned one sparking hand in her direction, panting with the strain.

It was not a warning.

It was a direct threat.

"DO IT NOW!"

Her voice was not her own – a slick and shadowed roar that tore at her throat. Jordan swallowed, face upturned, and saw that Calyx had almost reached the darkness. In the inky shadows of its edges, questing claws reached out for her glowing form. They jousted each other to claim her. Jordan panicked, cried out for her magic, for help, for something to show her what to do. Her power rose in a desperate wave, snapping in confused whips beneath her lack of direction. She watched as the talons of darkness stretched, swiping, closer and closer. She heard Nerys' broken howl as she fought to keep the breach open, and felt the echo of her heart, breaking as she watched Calyx borne away.

The first claws touched their target, snatching at her, but a sudden font of light flashed out and drove them back. Jordan stared, amazed, as a luminous figure appeared beyond Calyx. She hovered, tall and proud, hands aloft to hold the darkness at bay. Jordan's breath caught when she recognised her mother, the spitting image of her visions; she was so much more vital, beautiful, and powerful than her dreams could ever hope to capture.

*Jordenna!*

The word echoed softly, teasing at her ears. The wind still whipped around her – she could see it – but the world had fallen mute.

*Reach for her, child!* Asbeth's wild voice urged her to react. *It must be now!*

"I don't know h-"

*Reach! NOW!*

Jordan flung out her hand with a surprised cry. Bright threads surged from her fingertips, racing away in a wild arc to tangle themselves about Calyx's motionless form. Instinctively, Jordan closed her fist around them, was nearly swept off her feet by the power of the pull from the other side. She slid several paces and Norae leapt for her with a shout, fastening her arms around her waist to anchor her to the ground.

*Pull!* Asbeth commanded. Her ethereal arms shook with the strain of holding the darkness at bay, but her mouth was set in a grim, determined line.

Jordan did as she was bid, reeling the threads in one inch at a time, her shoulders burning against the pressure. She gritted her teeth, dug her heels into the ground, leaned into Norae's firm grip. Slowly – infinitely – Calyx's shimmering figure pulled back, away from the breach.

*Recreate her, Jordan. See her healed, hale. See her gasping her first breath, glowing with life. You can do it, child – your power is formidable.*

Jordan closed her eyes, did as she was told. She reimagined Calyx as she was before she was struck down. She shook with the effort of her working magic. She hardly realised what she was doing, hardly understood, but she did not have to open her eyes to know when it was over. She felt the bond of soul and body as they met.

At Nerys' ecstatic cry, she snapped her gaze back to the breach, rapidly fading as the dark Lat'Nemele released her hold on it. Asbeth stared back, one sorrowful hand outstretched.

*I am proud of you, Jordenna.* Her whisper floated on the breeze.

The breach knitted closed around her, and Jordan choked on her sorrow, tears streaming down her face. She stared into those silver eyes – the echo of her own – until the last.

"I wish I'd known you…" she whispered as the other faded into the breeze. Her heart bucked beneath its burden.

Asbeth's last words shivered within her very soul. *There will be time.*

And then she was gone.