Chapter 86: The Door in the Dawn
The world returned not with a bang, but with a bewildered, gasping silence.
The harmonic pulse faded, leaving behind an aftermath of sensory shock. The fighters who had been frozen in combat stumbled apart, weapons dangling, blinking at each other and the impossible dawn light with the confusion of men waking from a shared, violent dream. The air still vibrated with the echo of something vast, but the crushing malevolence that had poisoned the ground around the dais was gone, scoured clean.
Kael forced himself to his feet from where he had knelt, his body screaming in protest. The psychic feedback felt like he'd tried to swallow the sun. His connection to Lyra was a raw, open wound in his mind, blazing with shared pain and triumph. He couldn't feel the edges of himself anymore; he was a pillar of aching consciousness, holding up the sky for the pack whose will still thrummed weakly through him.
He looked down the slope.
