Martha registered the absence with confusion. The demonic presence earlier she'd felt, that wrongness, had vanished. Whatever the demon had come to do, it had done it and left.
Outside, above the valley, Jannahvi stood on the cliff's edge with her five companions, watching the dust rise from the cliff face below. Her human disguise had reasserted itself, making her look once again like a harmless human.
Her eyes were distant, focused on something nobody else could perceive.
The work was complete.
The outer layers of the seal had been compromised, the load-bearing structures of the Sovereign binding cracked at critical junctions. It wasn't enough to free him—she didn't have the power for that, nobody did, but it was enough to start a process that couldn't be stopped.
Like cracking a dam.
The water did the rest.
"We're leaving," she told her companions.
"Already? We haven't even—"
"We've done everything we came to do."
