The Domini saga

The portal shrinks in a ragged shiver, its rim puckering like wet cloth. The second enforcer staggers inside the breach, robes flickering with void-light as they fight to keep the edge from folding inward.

Bren darts along the cracked wall and cuts across the enforcer’s flank, staff low and ready. Her gaze snaps to the black seams crawling through the corridor stone.

The ward is failing fast. If it collapses, the district goes with it.

The corridor buckles with a hard crack, and the portal warps narrower still. Bren plants herself between the enforcer and Kynes, forcing the choice into the open, strike fast, or seal the breach before the void eats the hall.

Kynes thrusts out a hand, and invisible force snaps tight around Kaelen’s throat and spine. The corridor goes still for one terrible beat.

Kaelen jerks once, then collapses sideways as the neck gives with a dry crack. The scorched map slips from their fingers and skids across the stone.

Bren flinches back from the shock of it, then snaps her attention to the breach. The portal’s rim gutters and buckles, the void-light inside it stuttering hard.

Red-black seams race higher along the walls, but the failing portal no longer has Kaelen’s hand on it. The passage ahead wavers, half-open and unstable, daring Kynes to commit or cut it loose.