Light swallowed her.

Not the soft, forgiving glow of healing magic—no, this was a vertical detonation, a column pulled upward like the spine of a god being torn open. It roared through her bones, through her breath, through the most fragile edges of her name. Elaria had no time to cry out. Her voice was stripped from her in the first heartbeat. Her shadow in the second.

And in the third—

Kael and Draven’s hands vanished.

The last thing she saw of them was not their faces, not their ...