Half a minute passed.
But then, something changed.
Through the haze of pain and desperation, through the sensation of being hollowed out from within, Jaegar heard a cry.
Not a scream of despair, but a sound of defiance. Of determination.
His mother.
Augusta had gotten to her feet.
Weak as she was, pale as she was, broken as she appeared to be, she threw herself forward with the desperation of a parent protecting her child. She moved toward the writhing tendrils of chaos, her thin frame a blur of motion.
Her hands, those hands that had once been among the most skilled of any chaos witch, came up and struck at the tendrils. Her power, dormant perhaps for years, blazed back to life. It was diminished compared to what it must once have been, but it was still formidable, still fierce.
