And Darius was brute, immovable, indomitable but was not untouchable either. A second cascade of stone, larger than the first, came crashing down. He threw up his arms, but the impact drove him to his knees.
For a moment, the Hollow buried him again in silence. Then Rhoam's bellow shook the chamber, a sound that rattled bones. The beast erupted upward with its horns crowned with stormlight.
Darius burst free alongside it with blood pouring from a cut across his brow. He spat into the wind as laughter was broken and feral.
"Is that all you have got?" But even his voice trembled as he asked. From the storm, whispers slithered into being. At first, they seemed like echoes of the storm itself and then words took shape, familiar and venomous.
Lyra froze mid-climb. "Elara?" she whispered. Her sister's voice coiled around her ears like silk, too tender, too real. "You don't need to fight, Lyra, let's go. Come home to me. Surrender, and the storm will cradle you."
