Except now other Threads were shoving into her awareness. An onslaught of magics, of witches now turning their attention to Iseult as she claimed one of their own. Their Threads pulsed with battle, their eyes fastened on her face—on her bandaged hands still squeezing—and they abandoned their various fights to attack Iseult instead.

Iseult released the Windwitch. He still lived, if weaker, but she had enough power. She would use it to fight the witches now storming her. She would kill and cleave, severing each soul until there was nothing left but shriveled Threads.

And now here was the shadow wyrm, each leg lifting through frozen darkness. Half speed because the funeral dirge slogged on in Iseult’s brain. The monster aimed for Purists. It killed with no real goal in its beastly, Void-filled heart, and second by second, it careered nearer to Iseult.

For some reason, though, Iseult didn’t move. She should. She should fight and cleave and kill because Puppeteers had no conscience. Voidwitches did not care.

As a wall of murderous Threads bounded toward her, as a monster thundered her way, Iseult simply swiveled her head and found her mother’s eyes again. Green and gold and so familiar. Too far to see clearly, but forever etched in her brain. Mother. The woman who’d raised her. The woman Iseult had always believed she wanted to be.

Somehow she felt those eyes more sharply than the billowing flames or clawing winds.

Nearby, Alma shouted at Corlant. With hate and a rage so raw it needled through Iseult’s stasis and punctured the tiny corner beneath her lung. “I will die,” she roared, “before I let you take what I am!” Then Alma lifted her blade and turned it on herself. It moved toward her heart, listless and unreal. Just as Corlant bore down with unnatural height. Stretched out like a rag doll ripping at the seams.

And Iseult’s stasis punctured wider. It didn’t have to be this way. We didn’t have to be this way.

That was when the next attacks hit Iseult. Two at once with a punch of winds to break her in two. Hot, sudden, potent with rage. She flew, her spine cracking and the world melting into a blur of snow and smoke and Threads of violent gray.

She hit a wall, the stones ancient and unyielding.

Pain exploded through her chest and shoulder. Her palms shredded anew, and black silted across her vision, briefly erasing the battle—though not the silver Threads arcing her way. They shook with the screams of a monster ready to feast. She would break a thousand ways before it was done.

Iseult drew in her legs to stand, but her muscles wouldn’t cooperate. Not fast enough, at least. Each movement took a lifetime, each heartbeat stretched into infinity.