Morwenna's POV
Blood stained my palms. Not his. Mine. But it felt like I’d stolen it from Leofric anyway.
He lay still beneath the collapsing sky, chest barely rising, his body mangled from the fight with Liora. The old gods had taken more than power when the portal opened—they’d taken part of him too. What was left looked like Leofric, but something in his spirit trembled, cracked in a way I couldn’t reach.
“Don’t die,” I said aloud, as if saying it would make it law.
No answer. Only the distant rattle of the battlefield dying into silence.
The mages scrambled to hold what remained of the wards. Sabine barked orders, soaked in sweat and blood, her braid half-severed, one arm limping useless at her side. Soldiers staggered around me, none daring to speak. No one looked me in the eye.
