Chapter 66 #2
No body, only shredded muscle and viscera splattered across the stone walls.
The sole sound that followed was the wet slap of the remains of his torso hitting the ground.
I blinked.
My own haze coiled tight inside me, as if it didn’t want to get too close to whatever the hell that just was.
The rest of the Chiefs faltered—only for a second—but it was enough.
Emma didn’t wait. She turned, graceful in the way all predators are, and swept her arm through the air. Her haze followed: not a beam, not a thread. A wall. A tidal wave of burning magic that crashed across the room like it was hungry.
The next two Chiefs didn’t stand a chance.
Her energy carved through them like molten glass, stripping skin from muscle in ribbons.
One dropped to his knees, shrieking as his face peeled away.
The other was thrown back into a pillar, his back cracking on impact, and when he hit the floor, half his body was twitching. The other half was gone.
She didn’t stop.
There was no hesitation, no rest between attacks. She kept moving like she’d been waiting to be unchained. As if this had been the excuse to unleash her all.
And gods, she was stunning in the way wildfires are—beautiful and consuming, leaving nothing but ashes once they start to burn.
As I studied the last remaining Chiefs, I realized none of them were looking at me.
They weren’t looking at any of us.
They were all staring at her.
And for the first time since they burst through that corridor, they looked afraid.
One of them stumbled backward, a haze half-formed in his hand, but she was already there.
Her hand wrapped around his wrist, burning bright enough to light the entire chamber.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice calm.
Then she let her magic loose again.
He screamed.
Until there was nothing left but ash.
The last one standing dropped to his knees, hands raised, chest heaving.
Emma looked at him. Only looked.
He passed out. Just like that.
A heavy silence crashed down on us. Smoke drifted through the shattered room, curling around the wreckage. My skin still buzzed with leftover haze—hers, not mine—and it crawled over me like static.
And Emma…
Emma stood at the center of the destruction like she’d been born there: chest heaving, fingers curled, that blazing scarlet light still flickering across her skin like it hadn’t decided whether to leave or flare again.
She was glowing. Fierce and untouchable.
Like a godsdamn war deity dropped into our world only to remind us of who we answer to.
And fuck, it was, without question, the hottest thing I had ever seen in my entire life.
For a moment, no one moved, no one spoke.
Maybe we were all a little stunned. Maybe we were still trying to catch up to what she’d just done, because in the span of barely a minute, she had ended it.
Or so we thought.
I didn’t hear him enter, didn’t see him either.
There was no grand announcement, no warning.
Out of nowhere, a slow, gathering hum crept across the floor like a storm rolling in too fast to outrun.
Then: light.
It arced upward, carving through the space above us like a rainbow drawn against the sky.
At first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. The haze wasn’t aimed at anyone. It wasn’t a strike. It was too controlled.
That’s when Cara’s voice rang out, strangled and horrified, “No!”
My head snapped toward her, heart stuttering at the raw panic in her tone. She wasn’t looking at Emma, or at me, or even at the damage left behind.
She was staring at the man, translating in the center of the room.
The High Chief.
He was standing right beyond the debris, cloak trailing behind him, one hand still raised, the other beginning to move in a slow, circular motion, haze pouring from his palms in steady waves that spread through the room like ink bleeding across water.
I felt it before I understood it, the energy pressing against the edges of my haze, constricting it like a vice.
He was bubbling us in.
Again.
A cage forming around us cell by cell. The moment of freedom we’d just claimed evaporated, stolen from us before we could even draw a full breath.
I turned in time to see the corridor fill again.
Eight more Chiefs.
Fresh. Rested. Unwounded. Not a mark on them.
They stepped into the room with quiet confidence, fanning out like they already knew the positions they were meant to take. The High Chief didn’t even acknowledge them until they were in place. Only then did he lower his hand and speak.
“Do not translate within Cyclos,” he said as calm as it was final. “The Collective is now bubbled in. Any use of magic will result in fatal backlash.”
Emma took a half step forward, shoulders still tense, fingers twitching as if she was ready to fight anyway.
But before she reached the asshole we’d come to kill, the High Chief lifted both hands, his expression impassive, and released a final wave of haze across the room.
It wasn’t fire.
It wasn’t pain.
It was silence, heavy and sudden and complete.
It slammed into me like a wall, and my legs gave out beneath me. The world tilted, the sound of everything stretching into a low, humming void as something swept through my chest like a fist closing around my heart.
Someone shouted my name.
Emma.
I tried to reach her.
Tried to move.
But the floor was already rushing up to meet me.
And then the world disappeared.