"Hold it back!" Doran shouted, his voice cracking with age that hadn't been there minutes before. "Don't stop the ritual, no matter what happens!"
Vesk moved first, blade raised, placing himself directly between the entity and the three kneeling at the wound's edge. "Finish what you started. I'll buy you time."
"You said you came unarmed," Gad shouted, blood still flowing from his palm into the pulsing light beneath him.
"I lied," Vesk said, already charging forward. "Forgive me later, if there's a later to forgive me in."
The entity's darkness surged toward him, and Vesk met it head-on, blade cutting through cold air that seemed to resist every strike, frost spreading across his exposed skin with each passing second.
He fought with a desperation none of them had seen from him before
