Without a single conscious thought, without a moment of hesitation, his body reacted. The same strange, silverish energy that had carried him across the cosmos now erupted from his wings in a blazing corona. It was not his own power but a borrowed strength, a final echo of the Apex's will.
With a powerful, concussive flap that tore the very air asunder, he became a silver streak across the heavens. The world blurred into nothing but color and wind. He moved with a speed that defied physics, a velocity born not of flight but of transposition.
One moment he was high above, a falling star. The next, he was there, his body materializing instantly in the space beside her tumbling form.
Time seemed to slow, granting him a single, heart-wrenching frame... the pale shock on her face, the way her hair whipped in the turbulent air, and the grimace of pain that etched her features.
