The chains snapped taut, dragging Eli'Erel across the broken earth with a shriek of tearing stone.
She twisted, wings flaring wide as shadows poured from her feathers like liquid ink, slicing against the bindings. Each lash of darkness frayed the golden links, but every time one gave way, two more manifested from the molten ground below, reforging themselves in endless succession.
Her scythe slashed down in a vicious arc, cleaving through half a dozen chains in a single sweep. She spun with the momentum, hurling a crescent of abyssal force that ripped the remaining chains apart and carved a trench straight toward him.
Alister didn't move. A wall of radiant shields erupted before him, layering and folding into one another like golden petals. The abyssal crescent struck, shattered, and dispersed in a bloom of black sparks, the shields holding without so much as a tremor.
