Page 79 of Too Dangerous To Die

A command.

The air detonates around us in a shockwave of pure, ancient power. Magic not born of this age. Older. Wilder.Hers.

The Warlord reels, his grip loosening as fire—not elemental, but something deeper—wraps around his limbs and begins to burninward. He shrieks without opening his mouth, his armor melting, his form unraveling.

I fall, gasping.

And Nora rises.

Her eyes glow—not with Medea’s hunger—but her own fury. Her ownwill.

She speaks in the Wraithborn tongue, low and furious. Words that tear reality, twist the stone beneath her feet.

“You are unbound. You are forgotten. You have no dominion here.”

The Warlord collapses.

Not dead. Not destroyed.

Butbanished.

His armor crumbles into dust, leaving only silence behind.

The magic vanishes.

And then, she sinks to her knees.

I’m at her side in an instant, wrapping my arms around her even as I shake.

She’s trembling. Eyes wide. Breath shallow.

“I didn’t know I could do that,” she whispers.

“I didn’t knowanyonecould do that,” I answer.

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t Medea,” she says softly.

“No.” I brush her hair from her cheek. “You wereyou. And you saved us.”

But her voice breaks as she says, “It scared me.”

I pull her into my arms tighter.

“It scared me too.”

For one terrible second—I wasn’t sure which side she was on.

And now I wonder… ifsheknows anymore.

38

NORA

Ash drifts in the still air like forgotten snowfall.

The ground where the Wraithborn Warlord fell is scorched black, a circular wound in the earth where magic bled raw and ancient. Rhaegar hasn’t left my side since it ended—since I spoke words that didn’t come from memory, but instinct. As if something deep within me had waited centuries to rise and answer.

Now that it has, I can’t stop shaking.

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