Page 47 of Bought By the Void Walker
Through the light, I see Melara's consciousness rise from her crystallized form. For one impossible moment, she's whole again, her awareness focused on Yorika.
Then she's gone, absorbed into the golden torrent with the other freed souls.
The explosion reverses, erupting outward.
I abandon the Collector. Let him face what he's created. My form dissolves completely as I wrap around Yorika, every tendril of shadow cocooning her in layer after layer of darkness. Her heartbeat pounds against what remains of my chest. Her breath warms the shadows that shield her.
The wave of destruction hits.
I become a conduit. The only way to save her is to channel the explosion through myself into the void. My nature as a crossing point between realities makes it possible. Also makes it fatal.
The first soul tears through me, a child whose consciousness burns like acid as it passes. Then another. And another. Three hundred and twelve fragments of preserved awareness, each one ripping away pieces of my essence as they flee toward freedom. I'm the door they pass through, and each passage tears the door wider.
A young man's consciousness shares a fragment of memory, his daughter's first word, before shredding what I use for thought. A mother's soul blessed me in a language that predates the Shift, taking my ability to speak with her.
Melara passes through last, her essence brushing mine with sisterly warmth meant for Yorika. Through me, she sends love. Then she's gone, and I'm coming apart at fundamental levels.
My consciousness scatters. I exist in the gallery, in the void, in twelve dimensions at once. The shadow that forms my body disperses like smoke in a hurricane. My thoughts fragment: one piece still aware of Yorika's heartbeat, another dissolving into the spaces between stars, a third simply ceasing.
The Collector's realm collapses. Walls fold into themselves. The black glass floor becomes a ceiling that becomes nothing. Reality eats itself, and I'm spread too thin to care.
Yorika is unconscious but alive. My cocoon protected her. The explosion passed through me instead of her.
It was all worth it. She is worth everything.
The last sensation before I dissolve completely: her pulse, strong and steady.
Then I'm nothing but scattered shadow across ruins, dispersed consciousness fading into void, acceptance of an ending that saved what mattered most.
The rain begins to fall, washing through what's left of me, spreading my essence thinner with each drop. I can't hold form. Can't gather thoughts. Can't do anything but exist in fragments, fading.
But the bond holds one tiny piece of consciousness together. Just enough to know she's alive.
Just enough to know I succeeded.
Just enough to let go.
YORIKA
Rain on my face pulls me back to consciousness.
I'm lying on broken stone. Every muscle aches, but I'm whole. Unharmed. The gallery is gone. Scattered rubble and pink puddles where crystal dust mixes with rain.
The Soul-Still. Golden light. Nezavek wrapping around me. Then nothing.
My left hand throbs with warmth. I raise it, finding a silver mark etched into my palm, interwoven threads of light forming a pattern that shifts when I look directly at it. It pulses with its own rhythm. When I focus on it, whispers rise: gratitude in a hundred voices, power given freely, a gift from the freed.
The bond screams.
Thin, fraying, about to break. I follow that sensation through the ruins, stumbling over debris, scraping my palms on sharp edges.
I find shadow pooling on stone without source or shape. Darkness that shouldn't exist under the open sky. I drop to my knees beside it, plunging my hands into the shadow. They pass through, finding nothing solid.
"Nezavek?"
The shadow ripples. Through the bond, not through sound, his voice comes. "You're alive."
"So are you."
