It did not kill him outright because he was not real. He had no physical existence, and so he could not be extirpated from her nightmares. But he was still vulnerable. She created caesures with wild magic. She could affect what happened within them.

She could hurt him.

In the multiplied simultaneous instants of impact, Covenant finally understood why Lord Foul had not forbidden turiya Raver to endanger Jeremiah with Falls. Yes, the Despiser burned to possess Jeremiah’s gifts; to control them. And Linden’s son would be forever unattainable if he were lost within a caesure. Eventually the destruction of the Arch of Time would destroy him also. But if wild magic enabled Joan to take action inside her temporal maelstroms, turiya could do the same through her. In effect, therefore, turiya Herem had the power to snatch Jeremiah back from chaos. Lord Foul could recapture the boy and use him.

But no foe of the Land would choose to recapture Covenant. Joan’s force hurled him away. It pounded him against rocks and shoals.

The Humbled did not move to catch him. They did not react at all. Instead they stood rigid as death, frozen in timeless ice and hornets.

Their passivity was turiya’s doing. The Raver lived within Joan. He ruled her. As much as her madness permitted, he guided her rage. Riding her fire, he had reached into the Fall and mastered Clyme and Branl.

They were done. They did not exist. They had never existed.

But—

Hellfire!

But—

Hell and blood!

—Joan’s blow had other effects as well: effects which Herem had not intended, and could not prevent. It increased the implicit puissance of the krill, yes. That was important. It was necessary. But her violence also cast Covenant out of her mind. It externalized him. She could not end his life while he was absent in chaos, and so her hunger for retribution began to make him real. Physically present.

Inadvertently her despair resurrected him in front of her.

And the complex lore galvanized in Loric’s blade reinforced Covenant’s manifestation. It enhanced his substance. His grip on it quickened his translation out of the caesure.

Already the gelid wilderness was fraying; evaporating. The firestorm of severed instants lost some of its ferocity. He was no longer trapped inside Joan.

If she struck him again, she would make him fully present.

But the same blow would also incinerate him. With one more bolt of silver lightning, she would finally rid herself of the ghoul which had haunted her suffering.

Until then, however—until she punched herself once more, transformed her intimate agony into coruscation—

Try it, Covenant panted. Try it. Try to survive it yourself. You’ve been making too many caesures. You exhausted yourself getting here. You’re so weak you can hardly stand. So go on. Try to kill me without burning out your own heart.

While she groped for her last strength, he had things to do.