Pain.
It was all I knew as I tore through the void between spaces.
The corruption spread through me like wildfire, eating away at the edges of my existence with a hunger that rivalled my own. Each pulse of it sent fresh agony ripping through my form, and I could feel pieces of myself sloughing away into the dark.
That wretched thing.
Rinne had not even aimed for me. I had simply been in the way—an obstacle between him and his escape when everything fell apart. His essence had punched through my defenses like they were nothing, leaving this... this rot behind.
I had tried to flee.
The moment Paloma lost control, I knew. The moment that idiot sister of mine let her hunger override every shred of sense she possessed, I knew there was nothing left to salvage. Centuries of careful cultivation. Decades of patient waiting. All of it reduced to ash because she could not resist the urge to gorge herself.
And now I was paying for her stupidity.
