Chapter 51: His Soul Still Burns
The demon pulled the finger that stabbed into Rowan, watching as a thick trail of red followed in the space that it retracted.
Rowan gasped, his body begging for air to pass through his lungs.
Only fire followed.
A flame that caressed his stomach and squeezed his insides, squirming through the parts that hurt most to remind him of the immeasurable pain.
He hunched forward, arms dangling helplessly in the formless black void beneath them. The absence of gravity made the motion sluggish, as though even pain floated freely here. He tried to close his mouth, but the fire in his throat leaked into his breath. Each inhale brought searing agony, and each exhale tasted of rust and smoke.
Liora reached out with trembling hands, her voice a screech twisted by desperation. "Rowan! Rowan, please! Tell me you’re not dead!"
His body twisted unnaturally, floating sideways before crumpling downward, curling into himself as if trying to contain the raw hurt coursing through every nerve. Blood spilled from his lips, trailing in long red tendrils that drifted weightlessly across the mental realm like ribbons.
The demon towered above him, its form nebulous, held together only by malice. Its face bent into a smile too wide for any human expression, a grin so vast it looked more like a gash ripped across a void.
"So ends the Wordless Mage," it whispered, its tone soaked in mockery and glee. "You had power--oh, yes, real power. But you let it slip through your fingers for fleeting human emotion. It’s a shame, really, although I think it makes it all the more entertaining for me."
Liora backed away a single step in the emptiness, though she touched nothing. Her heart throbbed with the unbearable rhythm of guilt, the weight in her chest growing heavier the longer she watched Rowan tremble.
"He’s not dead," she whispered to herself, her words stolen immediately by the silence. "He can’t be."