The light collapsed inward all at once, and Wei Liang hit the stone floor hard, ears ringing, vision swimming back into focus slowly around a chamber gone suddenly, completely silent.
"Xu," he gasped, pushing himself upright. "Xu, answer me."
No response came from the pendant against his chest. Cold dread spiked through him faster than any wound had all fight.
"Wei Liang." Shen Yue's voice, hoarse but alive, calling from across the chamber where she still shielded Wei Dong and Brigh. "Are you hurt?"
"I don't know yet," he said, scanning the chamber. The pillars had gone dark, the jade fragments across the floor reduced to fine dust, and at the center of it all, where the Warden had made her last stand, nothing remained except a scorched outline on the stone.
"She's gone," Liu Che said
