But before she could say anything, the ground beneath them shuddered.
Malachar's head snapped up, his expression darkening. "The dungeon knows the seal is broken. It's trying to compensate. Stabilize." He stood, pulling Kira to her feet with surprising gentleness. "We need to leave. Now."
"How? The rift-"
"You have chaos magic now." His smile returned, sharp and excited. "So make a way out."
"I don't know how to-"
"Yes you do." He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she felt that surge of power again, gentler this time. "Chaos has no rules. No forms. It's pure creation. Pure imagination. So imagine what you need, and will it into being."
The ground shook harder. Cracks spider-webbed across the wasteland, and from them things began to crawl out. Twisted, malformed creatures made of shadow and crystal-the dungeon's immune system, trying to eliminate the infection.
Kira's breath quickened. "I can't-"
"You can." Malachar's voice was firm but not unkind. "What do you need right now? What do you want more than anything?"
To escape. To be free. To never be trapped again.
The thought burned through her like lightning.
Kira thrust her hand forward, not knowing what she was doing, only knowing she needed out- and the air in front of her tore.
Not like the rift that had brought her here. This was different. Cleaner. A doorway made of swirling colors that shouldn't exist, edges crackling with green-gold energy. Through it, she could see the dungeon corridor where she'd fallen. The real world.
"Magnificent," Malachar breathed. "Just like your ancestors."
The shadow-creatures lunged.
Malachar moved faster though. His form blurred, and suddenly he was between Kira and the monsters, one hand raised. The air around him twisted, and the creatures simply… unmade themselves. Not destroyed-unmade. They folded inside-out and simply ceased to exist, as if reality had decided they were a mistake.
"Go!" he commanded.
Kira didn't need to be told twice. She dove through the portal she'd just created, and Malachar followed, his form condensing into something smaller, more contained. The portal snapped shut behind them with a sound like breaking glass.
They tumbled into the dungeon corridor in a heap.
Kira lay there for a moment, stunned, staring up at the familiar stone ceiling. The normal, terrible, real ceiling. She'd made it back. She was alive.
"Well done." Malachar's voice came from beside her, but when she looked, he wasn't there. Not physically. Instead a small mark had appeared on the back of her right hand-a spiral of green-gold light that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. "I'll need to conserve energy until you grow stronger. But I'm here. Always."
Kira stared at the mark. Her contract seal. Proof she wasn't alone in her own skin anymore.
The reality of what she'd done hit her like a physical blow.