Book One – Chapter 10

Her lifeless body crashed onto a protruding ledge one hundred meters below, the impact jolting Midnight back to consciousness. Pain washed over her, followed by a wave of stomach-turning sickness. Her body writhed uncontrollably, her face contorting, her legs convulsing like those of a dying arachnid. Almost all her Rothar was gone, not merely eaten by the shadebeast but so violently ripped from her that it had ruptured her very essence. Midnight felt the devastation with uncanny clarity; it was the first sensation that had reached her after the nothing, it had come with the sickness, it had brought the sickness. Her essence, the core that anchored her Rothar and linked these energies to her body, was destroyed — all but the fragment of darkness essence bestowed upon her by the Gods. This part was still there; a mere fragment of Midnight, yet in itself still whole amidst the ruins of her being.

   
     Eighty-nine, ^eighty-nine

^{She came around}  just one more time

  To no avail

              ^{Shift with your all}

    ^{Or fail}                   and fall!

   Ħ𐌄Ꞧ𐌄 Ħ𐌄 𐌂Ꝋᛗ𐌄𐌔!

    
The shadebeast leapt down from high above. Midnight was a bundle of jittering mess. She strained to push herself up and out of harm’s way, but her legs refused to obey. Instead, she thrashed wildly, her movements erratic and uncontrolled. In her desperate attempt to rise, she inadvertently hurled herself off the narrow ledge.

She plummeted almost to the ground, her convulsing body colliding repeatedly with the wall,  where ice and stone tore bloody wounds. The shadebeast followed swiftly, landing above her the moment she crashed onto a wide, ice-covered ledge, where he pinned her down with his sheer mass, leaving her incapacitated on her back. Midnight had no means of evasion or defence; her body thrashed and tore without control, and every time her limbs went into the rippling darkness, more pain seared through her.