Page 74 of Wolf of the Storm
If I kill him here, I complete the ritual myself.
I release him. Try to throw him away from the convergence point. But Connor's hand shoots out, grabs my wrist in an iron grip. His other hand still holds the silver knife, slick with the old woman's blood, and he drives it into his own chest.
Deep. Angled up under the ribs. Straight into his heart.
"Thank you," he whispers. "For being predictable."
He falls backward toward the convergence point. I lunge, trying to grab him, pull him away. My fingers brush his arm but can't get purchase.
Connor's body hits the stone directly over the convergence point where the elderly woman's blood pools. Storm blood mixing with bloodline sacrifice.
Too late. I was too late.
The convergence point activates.
The sound is indescribable. Like worlds colliding. Like the universe screaming. A rift tears open above the stones—small at first, maybe three feet across. The seventh seal, the one Eliza strengthened at the eastern shore, fights back. I can feel it holding, resisting, buying us precious seconds.
But Connor's blood keeps flowing. More Storm blood spilling onto the convergence point with every heartbeat his dying body manages. The rift strains. Widens. Four feet. Five. Six.
The seventh seal cracks.
Not breaks. Not yet. But I hear it—a sound like ice fracturing on a frozen lake. The seal Eliza strengthened is the only thing standing between our world and what lies beyond.
And it's failing.
All around us, the battle falters. Shifters on both sides slow, staring at the rift as it tears wider. Eight feet now. Ten. Twelve. Even Connor's mercenaries hesitate, their training warring with primal instinct that screams danger.
Something presses against the barrier from the other side. Something vast and ancient.
The seal fractures further. Splinters of ancient magic falling away like shattered glass.
Then it breaks.
The Fomori emerges.
Chaos given form. Looking at it makes my eyes burn, makes my mind try to reject what it's seeing. Limbs that bend in directions that shouldn't exist. Too many eyes. Too many mouths. Darkness that writhes and shifts, never holding one shape long enough to understand.
It shouldn't exist. Can't exist. But it's here.
Connor's body lies at its feet—or whatever passes for feet in that writhing mass. The ritual complete. Six seals broken. One Storm Alpha sacrifice. The convergence point activated.
And the door to the old world standing wide open.
The thing fixes its attention on me first. On the Storm Alpha who failed to prevent its release. Its voice speaks directly into my mind, bypassing sound entirely. The words scrape across my thoughts like claws on stone.
Finally. Freedom. And such delicious irony—the protector becomes the liberator.
Lightning strikes all around us, but for the first time in my life, the storm doesn't answer my call. The power that's been mine since birth, that flows through eight generations of MacRae blood, is suddenly absent. Silent.
It's not mine anymore.
The Fomori turns.
Toward Eliza.
I reach for the lightning. Nothing. I call the wind. Silence.
My power is gone.
