She looked directly at Jake for a moment, her eyes wide and unfocused, then her gaze shifted abruptly, moving past him as if he had ceased to exist entirely.
Her attention turned toward the northwest, toward the direction where the mountains loomed in the distance. Their peaks were barely visible through the haze of the destruction that surrounded them.
Terror flooded her face, which Jake didn't expect at that moment. She was winning, after all.
Before Jake could capitalize on her distraction, before he could close the distance between them and exploit this moment of distraction, the space surrounding her began to distort.
She vanished from the battlefield, leaving nothing behind but displaced air and the faint shimmer of dissipating mana.
…
…
…
The world reassembled itself in a blur.
Mara stumbled, falling to her knees on the uneven stone. The air was scorching and smelled of massive amounts of blood.
