Bones cracked. Armor burst. Wings snapped and folded under bodies that no longer had the right to stand. Some of the stronger nobles resisted for a fraction of a second, their auras flaring as they tried to push themselves upright, but the Wisest Sun only twisted his fingers slightly, and they sank deeper into the ground until their ribs caved and their screams became wet.
"Dear me. How have I slept so, I must lend my aid," The Lord of Lords said.
His voice reached me through the chaos, and for a heartbeat, everything else dulled. The fire, the poison, the shrieking sky, the agony in my skull, all of it stepped back just enough for that voice to strike where no weapon could.
He sounded sane. Tired, yes. Ancient, absolutely. But sane. The madness that had gripped him before, the fractured haze that had turned one of the greatest beings I knew into something pitiful and dangerous, was gone.
