Chapter 87
The wind screamed across the summit, lifting whorls of dust that glimmered like ground-glass in the moonlight.
Tristan lay half-propped against a splintered boulder, breath shallow, eyes glazed but stubbornly open.
Every rise of his chest came with a wet rattle.
Xiniz's lightning still crawled over the battlefield in ragged filaments, crackling through cracks in the stone like veins of living cobalt.
Elijah stood alone now—one man between a fallen friend and the storm given flesh.
His Burst aura pulsed like a war-drum, and the 10 percent Zenith coursing through him hammered bone against muscle, muscle against skin.
The temporary stat spike sang in his blood, but it was not enough; he felt that truth in every parried punch and every numbing vibration that rolled up his forearms.
Xiniz grinned, teeth catching the lightning like shards of a shattered star.
