Eclipse

eclipse [ih-klips];
noun
1. the total or partial obscuring of one celestial body by another.
2. any obscuration of light.
3. a reduction or loss of splendor, status, reputation, etc.

verb (used with object), e·clipsed, e·clips·ing.
1. to cause to undergo eclipse.
2. to make less outstanding or important by comparison; surpass.

“Group, now!” Shallan snapped, digging through her pocket with a bloodstained hand. She wasn’t watching to see who had listened, instead watching De’San walk towards the other end of the great hall with the container of Allowyn’s ashes. She absently pulled a teleport bead from her pocket, the smooth, swirled blue bead cool against her fingers. The rock from the cavern containing the Stake scratched against the bead as she held them both in her right hand, rapier still drawn in her left. Why was it her, of all people? She had the least to do with all of this.

A tap on her elbow and the slight chill of abjuration magic settled over her, pulling her back to the situation at hand. She glanced down, seeing Pasha next to her. Pasha looked her dead in the eye, then waved a hand, holy symbol flashing, and then one of the rings on Pasha’s hand, and the matching one on Shallan’s, both began to glow softly. “Really?” Shallan asked.

“Yes. You die, the rest of us do. Stay within sixty feet of me this time.”

Shallan sighed but didn’t say anything else. She glanced quickly around her, seeing the rest of the group close enough for teleportation. And Cael, who seemed to just assume he’d be coming with. She didn’t particularly care that much. She whistled once giving everyone warning, and crushed the bead against the stone. There was the now-familiar twist and inversion of gravity, a rush of wind, and the party was suddenly standing in the cavern in the forest outside Nere’Nietal.

Shallan looked behind her, to the Stake. It was nearly solid, the few tendrils still branching off rapidly pulling in. She could feel that shard in her chest starting to thrum. It’s near, a voice in her head whispered.

She shook herself back as she heard someone scream, followed by the creaking of moving wood. She dug in her pocket once again, pulling out the two spell gems. She briefly made eye contact with Gerard, whose face was still fixed in cold rage, and his eyes were darker than usual. His psionics continued to flare, purple light weaving around him. She offered the gem taken from Kolosso, the warm glow of a fireball flickering within. “Chuck this at Messana’s face for me. I’m throwing the dark star.”

He nodded, not saying anything. Shallan twisted her rapier in her hand, and the hum of her bladesong filled the cavern, her own low voice harmonizing with it. She ran a thumb over the hilt, and she felt a dark pulse spread through her chest, bolstering her. She took a step towards the fight, but Pasha tugged her sleeve just before she could leave. “Remember, the Stake is your priority,” she muttered.

“I know,” Shallan growled. She pulled her arm away from Pasha, and rushed forward, allowing the supernatural swiftness of her bladesong carry her forward, faster than the rest of the party. She stepped over the glyph of warding, allowing it to trigger for the second wrath of nature. She stopped just after it, staring down the waves of skeletons and cultists before her. Piles and piles of bones and corpses littered the field before them; obviously, the trees and glyphs of warding had been more than Her Majesty’s Army was prepared for.

Behind them the massive, grotesque statue of the Lady of Shadows made from the parts of other shadow-touched, all stitched flesh and fused bone, lumbered slowly forward, dressed in silks and other fine fabric. Just to the left, Messana herself stood. Her mask was cracked, taking a solid hit from one of the trees judging by the bruise darkening her pale gray cheek. A crown made of twisted and jagged bone sat atop her head.

Shallan bared her teeth and whipped the spell gem containing dark star, kept on her person since killing Arvahn, towards a nest of tangled vines in the center. The gem arced through the night, passing tree and skeleton alike, before shattering on the cold winter ground. A sphere of darkness and crushing gravity burst forth, blanketing all in the spell. The truesight she had cast earlier in the night allowed her to see in, watching the skeletons, several cultists, and a few of the sentient trees all crumbled to dust beneath the spell, and those that didn’t fall cringed in pain.

From behind her, the other spell gem hurtled through the air, and she watched a conflagration flare into existence, scorching more of the cultists, as well as both the golem and Messana. Let’s fucking go, bitch.

She ignored what everyone else was doing, listening only to her song and the call in her bones towards the Stake. And the burning in her chest calling for Messana’s death at her hands.

Messana allowed the golem to carry her from the dark star, before stepping closer on her own. She began to cast something, looking in Shallan’s direction. Shallan swiped her hand through the air, pulling on one of the threads of magic around her, hoping she could get lucky enough for it to work. She swore under her breath as Messana countered hers. A dim black filtered over her vision, and Shallan snorted. Darkness, of course. Shallan stared right at Messana, a sharp, cold smirk on her face.

“You came prepared,” the other woman said irritably.

“You wish I was stupid enough to not,” answered Shallan.

Messana merely smiled cruelly, and cast another spell, a shard hanging from her necklace flashing purple. Shallan felt the spell behind her, the sheer power of it rippling through the air. She heard Cael shout in pain behind her, and the clatter of metal as he dropped to the ground. Cael’s down! she shouted through the telepathic link. She chanced a look behind her, trying to see if she could see the spell behind her.

A thin, black line, crackling with static and seeming to tear its way through reality as it moved hovered just behind her, rippling in and out of existence. Her stomach fell to her feet momentarily before she forced herself to refocus. It was a spell—a ninth, in fact—she’d read about a few months back in her research on the Shadowfell; a rift, temporarily torn, able to attack with blinding speed, and incredibly lethal. The name was fitting, even if it was a little trite. Blade of Disaster.

Shallan spoke into the telepathic link again, turning back to Messana. Do not step directly into the darkness on the other side of the spike growth, it’s a blade of disaster.

That means nothing to us, Chana, Khastal said.

Ninth level, lethal sword of Shadowfell, don’t get close, dipshits!

She turned her attention fully back to Messana, avoiding looking at the golem behind her. The continual melody of her magic maintaining dark star continued to sound in her mind.

Messana smiled sweetly, saccharine and not genuine in the slightest, noticing her refusal to look at the creature of flesh and decay. “What, do you not want to join our creation, Shallan?”

Shallan didn’t say anything, merely hissed a word in Draconic under her breath. A shimmering spear of energy shot from her forehead towards Messana, burying itself in the shader-kai woman’s head. She briefly swayed, the spell taking full effect, before the crown of bone on her head dug into her skull, drawing fresh blood. Messana’s eyes grew focused once again, and neither spell she was controlling faded. What the fuck, Shallan cursed mentally.

There was a flash of light behind her, and the darkness was suddenly gone. The blade remained, but a moment later Cael was back on his feet. Gerard moved in to close with Messana, his rapier coated in fresh poison. She turned the blade of disaster on him instead, and for the first time since he’d been traveling with the party, he shouted in pain as it carved across him twice, the force of a destructive planar boundary slamming into him. He staggered back, barely seeming to keep himself on his feet.

Shallan bared her teeth once more. I am not letting you take another one of mine tonight. She whipped around, facing the thing that had almost dropped Gerard and had apparently dropped Pasha while she hadn’t been paying attention. She plucked on of the thread of magic around her, the high alto of a dispel magic sounding through her mind and song. She didn’t have the power to guarantee that she could get rid of it; she couldn’t even cast the power of the spell required to do that. But if she shoved enough of her magic towards it, she could maybe brute force it gone.

It was apparently enough, as the boundary fizzled away, and she heard Messana cry out as someone—presumably Gerard—stabbed into her. The golem behind her became impossible to ignore at that point, as it suddenly bull-rushed Gerard, Cael, and Shallan, shoving all but Gerard out of the way and picking up Messana as it went. The stitches holding it together were starting to tear and fray, but it was still mostly intact. Unfortunately.

She dropped the melody of the dark star, nothing left in its radius, and caught a flicker of red as Khastal stepped forward, flashing his holy symbol. Bright golden light spread from it, covering her, the rest of the party, and several of the animated trees in the area. All her wounds, aching bones, and tiredness was wiped away by the magic, back to her full strength.

“You weren’t Lathandarian last I checked,” said Messana to Khastal.

“You weren’t a bitch last I checked!” he snapped back.

“She’s always been a bitch,” Shallan added.

Cael sighed. “Really?”

Sari’s voice was uncertain in her head. Uh…hey guys? There’s someone at the Stake.

Shallan switched back to the task at hand, biting her cheek. What do they look like?

I don’t know, short? Probably a gnome? Scholarly robes?

Her heart dropped, no longer racing in her chest, now feeling closer to her stomach. What do they look like? she repeated. What color is their hair?

I…I don’t know! It’s hard to see from here!

I think it’s red, Delim said quietly. I’m not sure, though.

Shallan swore vehemently in Vediyahn under her breath before turning on her heel and sprinting back into the cave. And came to a stop only a few feet away from a very familiar form. One she’d spent eight years working with, eight years trusting and looking up to. “What the fuck, Telna?!” she yelled over the sounds of the fight.

“Hm. Hello, Shallan,” the gnome woman responded idly, like there wasn’t a care in the world. Like another part of Shallan’s world wasn’t crumbling under her, a foundation she’d thought she could rely on failing.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“The Stake is picking its Druid tonight. What do you think?” Telna barely glanced over her shoulder, but it was enough for Shallan to see her eyes, normally a vibrant green, had been filled with black shadows, and tears of the same trailed down her face. Shadow-touched. Just like her.

Shallan forced her voice steady. “How long have you known?”

Delim, Pasha said in the link. Take her out.

Telna hesitated a moment, and Shallan pushed harder. “How long, Telna?”

I…I don’t know Pasha, that’s generally against the homie code, Delim responded, but she saw him ready his dagger in the corner of her eye.

“Since you told me the first symptom several months ago.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Because,” she said. “I want to know everything about the Shadowfell. I want to finish our research, to repair the rifts. What better way than to be the one who knows everything, to be the one with the Stake?” Her voice stayed just as blunt, matter-of-fact, as it always did.

“That’s it? Your curiosity?! Do you even know anything about what’s coming? What is going to be happening to the rest of the planes?”

Telna looked at her, eyebrow raised slightly. “Do you really think you can beat that woman out there?”

Something hardened in her, her spine stiffening. Her hand tightened on her rapier. “Yes, easier than you can.”

“You’ve never been particularly strong willed, not like her. Not like me. And the Stake will change you if you’re not strong enough.” Which you're not, was the unspoken part of the sentence.

That frank, disparaging remark of her will, now said a second time…Telna believed it. A sharp ache shot through her, and a moment later, the almost-forgotten but still familiar prickling sensation of spite rushed behind her ribs, just as everything else sank. She can’t get the Stake, she thought to herself, desperately wishing it wasn’t the conclusion she’d had to come to. “You’ve always known how I worked,” she said. Her voice wavered, thin, wishing with everything she had that this wasn’t the truth of things.

Telna couldn't be trusted with the Stake. She didn't care about anything that Shallan knew was coming—that she had told Telna was coming. All she wanted was the knowledge and prestige it would come with.

“Spite can only get you so far. But if you do manage to claim it, I will be inordinately proud of you, Shallan.” Telna turned back to face the Stake. “It will be solidifying in another twelve seconds. Good luck.”

Shallan looked at Delim, a resigned look in her eyes. Delim only hesitated a moment, before whipping his dagger at Telna’s head. The pommel thudded into her temple, and she watched as her mentor dropped unconscious before her.

A chill hand set itself on her shoulder. So you are willing to sacrifice for this? came a whispered voice. Neither masculine or feminine, sending a shiver of ice up her spine. One that she had heard once before here, several months back, welcoming her home. The Stake.

“Yes,” she said, steel backing her voice.

There was no response as the last tendrils of the Stake drew in. Messana teleported into the cave less than a second later. She glanced at Telna, then back to Shallan. “Well, that’s one out of the way.” She placed her hand to the Stake, and she was suddenly wrapped in a wreath of shadows, twisting and obscuring her.

Shallan swore once. “Cover my ass,” she shouted. “I’m getting the Stake!”

“You can do this, Chana!” Pasha called back to her. Khastal repeated her words, a fraction away from being in unison. Delim and Sari shouted similar affirmations.

She didn’t respond—she didn’t really have time—before she ran the last of the way to the Stake, stepping over Telna. Just before she placed her hand to the pillar or shadows before her, she distantly heard Cael speak. “Why are you eating a steak? I—go, wizard.”

She barely caught Gerard calling Cael a moron before her right hand made contact with the Stake. The same freezing, burning cold she’d felt before rushed from her fingertips through her entire body, and shadows wreathed her form before she was suddenly…elsewhere.

It was cold, the first thing she noticed. The air almost seemed to steal the breath from her lungs. The second thing she noticed was the dead silence. None of the sounds of the fight that had been surrounding her just moments before, no sounds of anything save her own heavy breathing. She was standing next to Messana in a dull gray expanse, nothing else present except for the two of them and the Stake. The same space she had seen the one time she had touched the tree protecting the Stake and heard it speak to her.

The Stake itself loomed over them both, towering high and dark and frigid before them. The pillar of shadows had no eyes, but Shallan could feel it watching the two of them.

She glanced to the side at Messana, calling on lightning. The sparks flickered in her hand, and she tucked it to her side, hiding it for the moment. Messana, meanwhile, seemed enraptured, almost in tears of awe.

“This is mine,” she said, only a bit louder than a whisper. “You will not keep me from this. I was born in shadow. This is my birthright.” She looked at Shallan, fire in her eyes. “This place was my mother, and this is my Lady. You will not stop me from claiming it, from bringing her back.” She looked at Shallan just as she was slamming her hand into the other woman’s chest, lightning crackling from her fingertips to her.

“Like fuck it is,” Shallan hissed.

“You’re going to need a lot more than just a cantrip to kill me,” she said derisively.

Shallan watched her begin to cast, the now familiar somatics to a disintegrate taking shape. Shallan yanked on her magic, hard, her hand cutting through the air in the best attempt at a counter she could muster at this point. She wished it could be higher, high enough to completely negate it, but a fourth was all she had.

The power that responded to her call was far more than that which came with a fourth level spell. The power that answered her was that of one of her highest, one she had already used earlier in the fight. A sixth. She didn't have another of those. Shallan barely hid her surprise, but her mind was racing. What in the name of the gods…?

Messana scowled. “You should be out of slots by now, you’re just a wizard,” she muttered, too shocked to really counterspell herself. She merely scowled, and slapped Shallan across the face. It was rather ineffectual, considering everything else she’d been hit with that night.

Shallan went to restart her bladesong, the rapier in her hand no longer humming in the quick and deadly song it normally would, but she thought for a moment, pieces falling into place. Shallan didn’t end it, not when she entered this demiplane. It had always been going, the whole time. The plane was never silent, instead humming with her song and voice, the magic aiding her in the fight. The plane responded to her will, and her song picked up right where it had stalled. That’s it.

She looked at the crown on top of Messana’s head, knowing it acted of its own accord, knowing it would likely save her if she killed her. She wanted it gone. Shallan flicked two fingers of her right hand out and up, forcing her will into reality in this strange plane, and the crown shattered into shards of bone.

Messana stumbled back a few steps. “What in—how dare you?”

Shallan felt a wolf’s grin spread across her face.

She watched understanding bloom in Messana’s eyes, across her face. She began to cast another spell, but she was far too slow. Her understanding incomplete and far too late. Shallan whipped her hand forward, pointing at Messana, and a sickly green bolt of light flew from her finger and slammed into the other woman’s chest.

Messana’s already gray skin grayed out further, her black hair slowly fading into charcoal. Hairline fractures spread from the point of impact, as she just stood, stunned.

Messana was a sorcerer; things had always come naturally to her. People, power, magic—she never had to work particularly hard to get it, because of who she was. She was born with it all, had it handed to her, every time. Her magic, her cult, her goddess, all of it. She never needed to solve anything, to piece together how something worked, to plan to get what she wanted. So when something didn’t come to her immediately, she fumbled, slowed. Didn’t know how to work things out at a moment's notice.

Shallan wasn’t a sorcerer. She never really had things handed to her, least of all magic. Sure, she’d lived comfortably with her family. But when it came to magic, her power, hells even her friends, she’d had to claw her way through, had to figure it out herself. She was a wizard, and she could count exactly how much time it had taken her to learn every single spell she knew, every single thing she could do. How much she had paid, the hours spent pouring over spellbook and scroll alike, piecing together the remnants of spells left behind by those better and stronger than her. Everything she had came because of her, and her ability to take in information, parse it in moments, and have a possible solution.

It’s why she was even standing before Messana now.

Messana had power, yes. But she was outclassed, perhaps for the first time in her life, by a young woman using nothing but her wit, nothing but what she’d had to learn to get to where she was. And that was the one thing the young woman hadn’t lost confidence in over everything.

“How the fuck does it feel, bitch?” Shallan snarled as Messana faded away into ash, exactly the same as Allowyn had less than a minute—had it really only been that long?—before. It was only a few seconds before she was nothing but a small pile of dust at Shallan’s feet. That’s for Allowyn, she thought towards the soul she knew was being claimed gleefully by the Raven Queen.

Shallan was breathing heavily, head rushing. She turned back to the Stake, to claim it herself, and blinked in surprise.

She saw herself standing there, instead of the Stake. At least, a version of herself. Her normally warm, russet-brown skin was washed out. Her eyes were tired, and perhaps most startlingly, there was a streak of pure white running through her normally jet black hair. The other-Shallan sighed heavily. “Well, this is the first. We knew it would be messy. Still a shame, though. So,” she said in Shallan’s voice. Other-Shallan extended a hand towards her. “Do you want this?”

Shallan took a steadying breath. “I do,” she said, and she was proud of herself for how sure she sounded, for the strength and steel she’d managed to get into her voice. Considering she hadn't wanted it just this morning, hadn’t wanted it even two minutes ago, the conviction she felt in that moment surprised her. She took other-Shallan’s hand, and she was once again plunged into that frigid, near-unbearable cold, before she was abruptly in the Shadowfell proper.

That wasn’t quite accurate. She was the Shadowfell. She felt her mind brush against every individual emotion held in stasis in the plane, those millions of sorrowsworn. Her mind brushed against the Dread Citadel, the keep of Her Majesty’s Army. The caves of the plague beast beneath the Shadowfell Vediyah. The crumbling temple on the northern coast of Mahren. She could feel all of it, was aware of all of it. Hers. No longer a place of evil and fear, not if she didn’t want it to be. It could be the neutrality it was before the Lady of Shadows, if she wanted it to be. The world went black, a gentle wind accompanying her, and she was once again standing.

The Stake was pressed to her back, no longer feeling like the intense, frozen ice as before. Instead, it felt like a light chill, like a breeze off the ocean. Strangely comforting, reminiscent of early mornings as a teenager, learning to surf with her brother and his friends. Shallan was back in the cavern of the Stake, hearing everything once again. A wall of fire roared with flame a few feet from her, but she could still hear the worried, terrified shouts and calls of her group. She briefly wondered at the source of their fear, but then she saw the creature of shadow in front of her.

A towering, black, desiccated-looking figure stood outside the cavern. Nearing the top of the entrance, its six glowing blue eyes were nearing fifteen feet up. Wide, curling horns spiraled back from its head, the skin under where its mouth should have been and at the joints pulling and tearing. Claws half her height sprouted from its fingers. Wisps of shadows wrapped around it, drifting into nothing several feet from its body. Anywhere the shadows could reach, the plant life in the area withered to nothing. Shallan tilted her head. It was turned towards the side, so she could only see the profile of the admittedly horrific creature. So this is a nightwalker, she thought. She was significantly less scared than she thought she’d be coming face to face with one. But maybe that was because she could see the shadows tethering it to this plane.

The Stake spoke to her again, in her voice. It is ours, you know. We could keep it as a pet, but I suppose it’s a little too big to keep in the safehouse. A pause. Telna would want to study it, but I don’t think we should let her. Or we can send it back home, to the Shadowfell, where it does belong. Your choice.

The nightwalker finally noticed Shallan. It turned to look at her, and as she met its gaze, it knelt. Bending down to one knee, lowering its head to her, bowing. She smiled faintly and nodded to the creature, acknowledging it, before she cut the tethers holding it to the Material Plane.

It vanished without a struggle, without resistance, merely standing and stepping through the planes back to its home. She had a moment to hear the ends of the fight outside, but she didn’t really focus on that as her head began to spin, the solid stone of the cave tilting under her. She placed a hand against the Stake behind her, bracing and steadying herself as she slowly lowered to the floor, closing her eyes and leaning her head back.

The Stake was cool and comforting behind her, and for the first time in months, she actually felt…almost at peace with herself. She knew who she was, and while she wasn’t sure about every part of it now, that would come with time. Or maybe everything was better because everything was rushing to her head and she couldn’t quite think entirely straight at the moment.

She heard someone rush into the cave, calling one of her names. The fake one, the nickname of the fake. More footsteps were following. Shallan dimly remembered she was leaning against the Stake, and that people other than her probably shouldn’t touch it, and she held up a hand. She forced her eyes open and saw Pasha staring down at her, concern written clear across her face. She could see some of the others—Khastal, Sari, Delim, and Cael—all following not far behind.

“Chana, are you alright? Do you need any healing?” Pasha asked, barely stopping herself from trying to reach around Shallan’s shoulders, remembering the rule of the Stakes.

“I’m fine,” she said, tired. “The bitch didn’t even get to hit me before I disintegrated her. You’re welcome about the nightwalker, by the way,”

Khastal approached and extended his hand to her. She gratefully took it, and he hauled her to her feet once again, steadying her as she wobbled slightly.

“It’s yours then?” Pasha continued.

Shallan nodded, smiling faintly. “It’s…it’s mine.”

Khastal smiled back at her, warm and…vaguely proud? “We told you you could do it.”

She snorted as the other’s entered the cave. Sari started hopping from foot to foot when she saw how heavily Shallan was leaning on Khastal. “Are you okay?” she asked.

She paused, considering.

Everything from the night came flooding back. The stupid fucking cannibal woman. The drow woman coming back. The fight at the gala. Allowyn’s death. Fighting Messana, Telna’s betrayal, fighting Messana a second time, claiming the Stake, banishing the nightwalker. The fact that, in reality, she was entirely safe for the first time in several years.

And Shallan burst into tears. Hot tears seemingly from nowhere flooded her eyes, blurring her vision, and she closed them again, trying with little success to stop them. Short, hiccuping sobs clawed their way from her chest, and she covered her mouth with her hand in a poor attempt to muffle them. She felt Khastal pull her into a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around her, one hand across her back, the other pulling her head down to his shoulder. She dropped her rapier, her now free hand clinging tight to the back of his armor as she wept. For herself, partly, the events of the night overwhelming her all at once. But mostly because she could take a moment to breathe. And she was hurting and grieving, both for Allowyn, and for what she had lost with Telna.

Sari, Pasha, and Delim all wrapped their arms around her too, warm and safe and offering meager comfort. She wasn’t sure how long she stood like that. Pasha stepped away at one point, to who knows where, but it couldn’t have been too long before she heard a groan coming from the corner of the cavern. Telna.

She lifted her head and stepped away from Khastal, signaling the end of the hug, and wiped at her face. She forced the tears back, taking a deep breath as she stared at where Telna was pushing herself to her feet.

“Ow,” the older woman muttered. She rubbed her head. “That was rather rude. Who even hit me?”

“Delim,” Shallan said flatly, mildly cursing herself for how wet her voice still sounded. “My brother.”

Telna turned to look at her. There was a bruise forming on her head, and one eye was more dilated than the other. “You claimed it. Congratulations.”

Shallan didn’t say anything, but she noticed that Telna’s eyes were…normal. No shadows, no shadowy tears. “Does anyone have a mirror?” she asked to no one in particular.

There were a few moment’s silence before Delim spoke up. “You’re not gonna break it again, are you? Because—“

“No, I’m not going to break it,” she said. She held out her hand for it, and Delim reluctantly put it in her hand. She glanced at herself in it and blinked.

Her skin, normally a warm gray under truesight, her true form as a changeling, was washed out and even grayer than normal. Her eyes were still filled with shadow, though the tears had vanished. She had to squint a moment at her hair to spot it, but she spotted the same white streak in the silver that the other-Shallan had had.

She nudged the inherent magic of her shapechanging slightly, and her scalp prickled as the white streak formed in her currently black hair, and she handed the mirror back to Delim.

“Are you mocking me?” Pasha said quietly, smiling lightly.

She snickered. “If I was going to mock you, I’d just be you but taller. No, it’s there now. In truesight.” She shrugged. No point hiding what she was now, until she had to be somewhere it would be significantly more inconvenient.

“Well, if it’s any comfort, I hear the ladies love the aging look,” said Khastal into the following silence.

The comment, despite how harmless it was likely intended to be, slammed into her chest like a warhammer, and she was once again forcing back tears, without too much luck. Her eyes welled up, and she only barely kept the floodgates back.

Khastal, to his credit, almost immediately recognized his fuck up. “Oh, gods, I am so sorry, Chana. I didn’t mean—“

She held up a hand. “It’s fine,” she whispered and turned back to Telna. “Get back to Cierdan.”

Telna brushed her robes off. “Ah. Resentment. I see. Expected, at least.” She pulled a teleport bead from her own pocket and crushed it under foot, leaving it to just the group.

Gerard and Ira had made it to the entrance, Gerard covered in far more blood than she’d last seen and barely staying on his feet, Ira bordering on carrying him. Ira looked at her. “Are we done here then?”

She nodded sharply. She grabbed her rapier, sheathed it, and wandered over towards the pile of dust that had once been Messana. She collected the few items she hadn’t been able to disintegrate. A thin needle, a shard of shimmering black, and that wicked crown of bone. As she picked all of them up, Ira continued. “Can we teleport back? I don’t think—“

“Yeah, no issue. Group up,” she interrupted, making her way over to the two of them in a mostly steady fashion. She could still move easier than Gerard could, at least, who looked about thirty seconds from collapsing. She was running out of patience and out of adrenaline, and neither of those were going to be pretty when she hit empty. All but Cael and Beiro gathered close, and she crushed a second teleport bead between her fingers, visualizing the teleportation circle in the basement. That same gravity twist, that rush of wind, and everyone was in the basement once more.

The safehouse was exactly as they had left it earlier that day. In tact, quiet, lived in. It felt almost alien as Shallan trudged her way up the stairs from the basement, towards her room. She barely remembered giving Pasha another teleport bead. She barely remembered sitting down on her floor, still in her armor and gala outfit, still covered in blood, and beginning to identify the items she had picked up from Messana’s ashes. If she kept doing things, she could make sure she didn’t break down. She wouldn't have to think about any of this.