Azaar’s dry chuckle echoed through the rapidly swaying shrine. Zehrav arched silently, the violet choker biting hard against his throat. The sickening glow from the bronze ring fed hungrily on the blue sparks sputtering over his breastplate, where the Ley-Loom emergency protocols fought a losing battle. [Ley-Loom Registry Notice: Emergency Protocol Override. Magical Suppression Collar detected.] [Tether integrity compromised. Toxicity acceleration initiated.] [Terminal psychic collapse in: 00:03:00.] Three minutes. Three minutes until Zehrav’s mind fractured, until the warlord force Azaar craved ripped him apart, until he became the butcher Neyla had detailed in her diary. But Qamara saw past the warning scroll and past the dread. She saw the man who had sheltered her, who had shouldered a lethal payload on her behalf. Her eyes snapped to Azaar, who still watched his illusion-panicked guards with a detached smirk. He saw a 'trick.' She saw a reckless gamble. Her gaze flicked to the dry-rotted planks beneath their boots, then to the vast drop beyond the sanctuary's crumbling threshold. “Azaar!” she yelled, shedding every trace of the stammering botanist. She lunged straight for the Grand Inquisitor himself. He barely shifted his weight, caught flat-footed by the tackle. She hit him low, a blur of motion, her shoulder a battering ram against his midsection. Her ribs barked in protest, but she drove her legs forward. Dry timber snapped like dry kindling beneath their weight. Azaar let out a startled grunt, arms windmilling as the flooring gave way. One moment their soles pressed joists; the next, empty sky swallowed them. The vertical sprawl of Djata—tilted stone terraces, aerial markets, and dangling suspension lines—flipped overhead in a chaotic swirl. Air roared past her ears, whipping coarse strands across her mouth. Qamara clamped onto Azaar's coat, wrestling his torso outward. “What in the blazes—?!” Azaar roared, his words ripped away by the gale. He thrashed to break her grip, but Qamara sank her fingers into his brocade lapels. A searing needle prick gathered in her ribcage, hotter and harsher than any previous tether flare. [Ley-Loom Registry Notice: Tether integrity compromised. Extreme physical separation detected.] [Distance from primary subject: 100 paces. 101 paces. 102 paces.] Her molars ground together until her jaw ached. The drag tore through her marrow like barbed wire. This was no routine static snap; the link groaned under the sudden altitude split. Her gaze locked upward on Zehrav, a dark silhouette stranded in the broken pavilion high above. Then, a new voice, a chorus of automated alerts, screamed in her mind. [Emergency Protocol Override. Ley-toxicity transfer initiated.] [Toxic overload redirected to nearest sentient anchor.] [Primary subject: Zehrav. Toxicity level: 0%.] [Secondary subject: Azaar. Toxicity level: 100%. Terminal psychic collapse in: 00:00:10.] The flare cut out. A sudden numb quiet replaced the bite in her marrow. The miasmic strain simply evaporated. Azaar snapped rigid in her grasp. Inky veins spiderwebbed across the whites of his sclera. His mouth gaped in soundless shock as the full, unfiltered backlash diverted into his core, his thrashing snuffed out by a violent tremor. Up in the ruined pavilion, Zehrav sucked in a ragged breath. The violet ring at his throat flickered, losing its venomous hum. The ink cleared from his irises, leaving raw amber. He leaned over the gap, spotting Qamara as a shrinking figure plummeting toward the green expanse below. Without checking his footing, Zehrav vaulted over the splintered sill. He dived straight into the drop, cutting through the updraft like an iron spearhead, gaze pinned entirely to her silhouette. Below, Qamara felt weightless despite the air hammering against her back. Azaar hung limp, dead ballast in her grip. She shoved against his chest, kicking to clear him, but the downward drag pinned her arms flat. A shadow fell over her face. Thick gauntlets locked around her ribs, hauling her hard against mail and boiled leather. Zehrav. He used his momentum to kick Azaar loose, casting the limp Inquisitor spinning into the mist. The metal loop slipped from Zehrav's neck, its violet spark dying instantly as it tumbled away. The tether was silent. No warnings flashed across her vision, no corrupting haze clouded Zehrav's stare. Yet reality offered little mercy: Djata's monstrous ironwood canopy expanded below them at terrifying speed, green crowns bristling like spears. Without a glider, a portal, or a working harness, terminal velocity remained completely uninterrupted.

Freefall