The void-hound moved like spilled ink.
Kael raised the Stormheart—too moderate. The animal obscured, a shadow-scythe cutting discuss where his throat. Claws shrieked over melded gembap. Sparkles flew. Anguish vibrated up Kael's arm.
"Cleared out!" Lyss's voice frayed through the beast's thunder.
The refinery beast lunged, teeth uncovered. As well as late. The dog broke up into smoke, transforming into a disfigured crane.
CRACK-WHUMP!
Valen's gun yapped. A drained uranium circular punched through the hound's shadow-flesh. Dark ichor splashed. The animal shrieked—a sound like pounding glass.
"Armor-piercing," Valen panted, drooped against rubble. His disjoined gem arm lay jerking adjacent, veins of light beating toward Kael's Stormheart. "House Thorne pays for... quality toys."
The Taking a Toll of Insubordination.
Kael pulled Valen behind a smashed generator. Blood doused the improvised gauze on Valen's bear stump—dar,k ruddy, strung with indigo.
"Why?" Kael tore cloth for a new tourniquet. "The precious stone was slaughtering you, but—"
"Control," Valen murmured. Sweat beaded on his crystal-patched confront. "That void-shit in my veins? It'Thorne'sne blood presently. My grandfather's bequest." He tapped his sanctuary, half-human, half-glowing grid. "We eat control. Don't bow to it."
Exterior, the monster howled. Lyss's violet light flared—a frantic net trapping the dog mid-leap.
"IT'S LEARNING!" Her mental voice strained.
"Adjusting TO MY Designs! "
The dog turned. Shadow-tendrils lashed, wrapping the beast's throat. Scales broken.
Kael held the Stormheart. Show me.
Soul-Sight tore open:
The hound's center: A turning hitch of green-black energy—a part of the Walker's will.
Lyss's blurring tie: Violet strings fraying as the beast's torment overwhelmed her intellect.
Valen's blood: Indigo fibers swimming in blood red, coming to for the Stormheart's light.
Bolster on it, the rune whispered. Take the Walker's quality.
Thorne Bequest
Valen snatched Kael's wrist. "Don't! That's how it follows us—"
As well as late.
Kael pushed the Stormheart against the overflowing precious stone stump.
Light detonated. Not violet. Crimson-indigo.
Valen's shout wasn't pain—it was acknowledgment. Hereditary runes lighted over his precious stone scars—a heredity of stolen control:
House Thorne's crest: A skewer puncturing a storm.
Blood-memory: Eras of Thorne Searchers carving runes into their bones.
Pride: "We chained the Void to begin with."
The void-hound solidified.
Its green-black center faltered.
"BLOOD-KEY...." It drew back. "DEFILER!"
Lyss seized the opening. The refinery beast chomped.
CRUNCH!
Basalt teeth sheared through shadow-flesh. The hound's screech cut off. Its center imploded—a vacuum sucking light, sound, at that point... nothing.
The Price of Power
Silence fell. Overwhelming. Inauspicious.
Valen drooped, gasping. His blood shone where it met the Stormheart—a lasting, beating bridge. "You... nitwit. Presently, it knows my bloodline."
Over, the Searcher carriers descended—jagged obsidian bodies smudging stars. Projectors flared:
"KAEL Thorn. Yield THE STORMHEART. OR THE Locale BURNS."
Lyss's voice whispered, weaker presently: "The monster is injured. I can't... hold much longer..."
Kael stared at Valen's blood-light. At the Thorn, the runes are blasting in his crystal flesh. A plan—terrible, necessary—coalesced.
"Your grandfather's bequest," Kael said delicately. "Can it break the Foundation?"Valen's human eye is limited. A moderate, ridiculous smile spread. "At la, st inquiring the proper questions, gutter rat."
End of chapter 20.