Viktor is slower down the stairs, careful against the wall. Later he'll be grateful he isn't afraid of heights—there's no room for it now, not alongside his quick assessment of this tall chamber, the ancient stairs winding down its perimeter to disappear behind the crackling, fuming knot of green energy suspended there. A remote thought: once they close it, they'll be in the dark.
Viktor raises his hand, shaking, dry and shrunken in the cold, flinches hard as something shrieks from below. He doesn't see, doesn't let himself look for it—only watches Ellie, now blazing from within.
The flask falls. The tower erupts in light.
Now, she cries, and the air splits in a jagged bolt between them. He tries to pinch it together, with his brain—
A toothy grimace of effort, tendons pulling taut, his hand a straining claw—
The Fade bursts from his palm, tears loose in ragged, writhing, crackling green to join its like, tears his breath loose with it, and his voice from his throat, all lost in the dissonant roar.
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Viktor is slower down the stairs, careful against the wall. Later he'll be grateful he isn't afraid of heights—there's no room for it now, not alongside his quick assessment of this tall chamber, the ancient stairs winding down its perimeter to disappear behind the crackling, fuming knot of green energy suspended there. A remote thought: once they close it, they'll be in the dark.
Viktor raises his hand, shaking, dry and shrunken in the cold, flinches hard as something shrieks from below. He doesn't see, doesn't let himself look for it—only watches Ellie, now blazing from within.
The flask falls. The tower erupts in light.
Now, she cries, and the air splits in a jagged bolt between them. He tries to pinch it together, with his brain—
A toothy grimace of effort, tendons pulling taut, his hand a straining claw—
The Fade bursts from his palm, tears loose in ragged, writhing, crackling green to join its like, tears his breath loose with it, and his voice from his throat, all lost in the dissonant roar.