The Domini saga

The seal thumps once, then again, in perfect time with Kynes's heart. Violet light climbs the stone lattice, and the chamber remembers the bowing place, its test waking up again.

The Entity steps close and lays a hand over Kynes's. At the touch, the air splits with a jagged thread of pale force, not between them, but under Kynes's skin.

He does not get the chance. The tether tightens, invisible and hungry, and the violet pulse begins to drain straight out of him into the Entity's form.

Bren staggers forward, horrified, as Kynes's shadow lengthens toward the Entity like a chain being reeled in.

Kynes clamps the trapped hand in place with raw will, and the violet field snaps tighter around the clasp. The drain jerks hard, then stalls.

His shadow surges outward, tripling into a sea of black pressure that slams across the chamber in a living wave.

Venom tears free from the floor cracks and snaps into the flood of shadow, feeding on the raw void as the assault takes shape.

The chamber goes brittle with force. The Entity's arm stays locked, but the tether shivers against Kynes's grip, stretched thin under the combined pressure.

Kynes turns the surge inward and fires point-blank. Void-black light blooms at the Entity’s trapped wrist, and the tethered grip splits with a dry snap of arcane pressure.

The parasitic line peels free in ribbons of frost and ash. The Entity recoils, its vaporous shape buckling as the violet field catches the backlash and keeps the chamber from bursting apart.

Bren staggers a step, blade still raised, then steadies as the drain breaks off Kynes. The chamber falls back into its controlled, listening silence.

A crack of void recoil scorches Kynes’s palm, and his staff shudders with spent power. The Entity hangs back in a colder haze, displeased and suddenly wary.