A heartbeat later, Jeremiah howled in agony. Within him, energies from all directions began to scourge his interred sentience. Bolts of ferocity lashed dozens of graves at a time, hundreds. Molten earth boiled around aspects of himself as they writhed to their feet. But this time, the blazing shafts did not raise him and then withdraw. No, this time each strike was sustained—It burned and burned him until each risen avatar was reduced to whimpering and ash; true death.

The croyel was not merely excoriating moments of Jeremiah’s mind: it was incinerating them entirely. Dozens or hundreds of his lost thoughts had already been destroyed.

How many of them could the monster slaughter before Linden killed it? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Then her son’s mind would be crippled. The damage would be irretrievable.

In horror and fury, Linden wanted to punch wild magic straight through the croyel’s skull. She could halt Jeremiah’s torment almost instantly. She would lose a thousand pieces of him, or ten thousand, or a hundred thousand. But the graveyard was immense; almost limitless. Like any mind. A gently nurtured brain could recover from appalling amounts of harm. In her former life, she had seen such things happen. And there she had lacked the healing powers of her Staff—

Nevertheless she stopped herself. Jerked backward a step. Quenched Covenant’s ring as rapidly as she could. Wrenched the band from her finger; shoved both the ring and the racecar deep into her pockets.

Withdrew her threat.

Because the croyel—

Her whole body trembled until she felt the barrage of lightning inside Jeremiah cease.

—feared Liand more than it feared her.

Liand and orcrest.

Covenant was shouting her name. How long had he been trying to get her attention? She had no idea. She was crying again, and could not stop. Hellfire, Linden! he may have yelled. You can’t do this! Wild magic is the wrong kind of power!

She knew that now.

Stave’s strong arms held her until her initial rush of trembling faded. Unable to stanch her tears for her, he did what he could by pushing the Staff of Law into her hands.

He had said, Should you fail, the outcome will be heinous to you. And she had certainly failed.

Nevertheless he was wrong. As long as Liand did not fail—

For a moment, stars seemed to reel around her, wheeling overhead as if she had thrown them into turmoil. The Sunstone still shone, refusing the immediate dark. The light of Loric’s krill throbbed with intimations of greed and murder. Yet to Linden the black sky felt as heavy and fatal as a cenotaph.

Stepping back from the brink of Jeremiah’s fate, she had made herself small again: too small to have any meaning among the forlorn immensities of stars and night, the hard truths of barren hills and crumbling gypsum. But she could bear her own littleness. It was enough for her.