I drive my fist upwards. Drive the broken shard of my blade into the sorcerer’s remaining eye. He rears back, blinded and screaming. Fire spreads from the blade outwards, coursing over the sorcerer’s armour and flesh. The sorcerer’s wings tatter in the heat, his armour and flesh and bones sloughing away until all that remains is a shadow, burning inside the fire. One with golden eyes.

‘Some things have to die,’ the sorcerer says, his voice no longer that of a devil, but of a man. ‘And some things don’t.’

And then the shadow blows away with the fire, leaving nothing behind but the remains of my broken sword.

‘You destroyed him.’

I look up to see Ravara standing there. The inquisitor’s skin and hair are scorched, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

I nod. ‘It is done.’

Ravara shakes her head. She is not looking at me any more, but at the gateway, which is growing wider by the moment. At the shape made of starlight, hanging beneath it. Lightning arcs downwards from Sofika to ground itself on the dais, a constant, furious storm.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Ravara says. ‘Not quite.’

And then she sets to running. I get to my feet and try to follow her, only for one of the lightning bolts to find me. It knocks the air from my lungs. Knocks me back to my knees.

‘Ravara!’ I shout after her.

This time, the inquisitor does not even glance back at me.

She just keeps going, into the storm.

Ravara

RAVARA

Lightning arcs down all around me as I run towards the centre of the dais. It shatters glass and powders stone, missing me only by the moments afforded to me by my gifts. Wind tears at my clothes and lashes my hair against my face as I reach the centrepoint and look up at the gateway, lightning crashing down all around me. Sofika hangs beneath it, her arms thrown out like wings. She is lit brighter than stars. Too bright to look at.

‘Sofi!’

I scream her name as loud as I can. Louder than the wind and the lightning. Louder than my heartbeat in my ears. At the heart of the storm, my dream-taker stirs. She looks down at me from above, her pale hair spread around her like a halo. Everything falls quiet. The wind. The lightning. My heartbeat. Quiet enough for me to hear her speak.

‘Ahri?’ she asks.

‘It’s me,’ I tell her. ‘Sofi. It’s me.’

She turns away from the gateway, then, descending towards the dais surrounded by tiny motes of light. The glow within her dims enough for me to really see her.

To see that she is whole again.