The woman gasped. Her eyes snapped to his, wide and tearless for the first time in a year. The black thread didn't break—it loosened . It dissolved into a harmless gray mist. She smiled at him, bewildered, grateful, and Kaelen felt a rush of power so absolute, so intoxicating, that his own blue threads pulsed like arteries.
For one perfect, eternal moment, there was no pain. No fear. No loss. The threads went slack, then white, then— snap . blue majik
The last drop of Blue Majik fell onto his fingertip. It pulsed once, like a tiny, dying heart. And then, with the last of his strength, Kaelen touched the thread that connected him to the world—the brilliant, tangled, beautiful, brutal mess of it—and he let go . The woman gasped
He decided to do something beautiful. He would untie all of it. Every thread of suffering. He would make the city a paradise. He stood on his balcony, arms wide, the skyline a forest of steel and glass, and he pulled . It dissolved into a harmless gray mist