The sigils fell like snow, silent and deadly.Each white-thread flake touched the air and the hum inside Arielle dimmed, like a candle smothered by an unseen hand. Her pulse faltered. The tether stuttered. For the first time, the connection felt… fragile.
Kerys's pale eyes never blinked as she approached, each step erasing more of the streets Arielle had claimed. "The weave is not yours," she said, her voice flat, as if reading a decree. "Release it, and you may walk away unbroken. Cling to it, and I will cut you down to the thread."
Arielle clenched her fists, reaching inward for the hum — but it slipped through her fingers like water. Selene's hand gripped her arm, stitches flaring weakly. "She's damping you. Her sigils… they're smothering the resonance. If she gets within a block, she won't even need to fight. You'll collapse."
Draven stepped forward, his constructs spreading wide, weaving into a violet net that buzzed with static. "Then we break her sigils before she smothers us."
Arielle swallowed the rising panic. Her bond to the city wasn't gone — just muted. The hum was still there, faint, distant, like a heartbeat she could barely hear. If she couldn't amplify it, she'd never survive Kerys's approach.
"Help me," she whispered, not to Selene, not to Draven — but to the city itself.
Beneath her feet, the pavement shivered. The hum surged faintly, tentative, like an animal sniffing a hand. She let her breath match its pulse, steadying herself. Not control. Not command. Connection.
The streets pulsed back.
The hum roared in her chest, flooding her veins like fire. Violet-silver threads erupted from the cracks in the street, weaving upward into a lattice that met Kerys's descending sigils mid-air. White and violet collided, each impact echoing like thunder across the district.
Kerys paused mid-step, tilting her head slightly. "So. You've learned to make it answer you. It won't matter."
The ground shook again, harder this time, the city's pulse syncing to Arielle's rising defiance. For the first time, the Severer's sigils flickered.
And for the first time, Kerys blinked.