Her eyes dropped immediately to his feet and her mind froze with terror at the grey that was creeping up his legs. She didn't have to think about it. She simply ran for him as fast as she was able, her body flying for him.
He lifted his hands to meet her. His handsome face showed his fear, his fingers frozen in stone in a stretch for her. She willed herself to be faster, to make it in time. Her fingers touched his cheeks, her lips met his, but they were cold and hard.
Refusing to accept that, she felt him vanishing, and after a second, her eyes opened to find him gone.
Slowly, she lowered her eyes to the grass at her feet and a pile of stone was there. Rubble, really.
She felt herself detaching from the situation as she looked down, unable to comprehend the situation.
Crouching down, she picked up a piece of stone and she looked at it without really understanding what it was. It was a hand with the index finger missing. It fit perfectly into her hand as though it had been made for her to hold.
"Uzo?" she asked in a tiny voice, the voice of a child who was calling for someone who had been lost but was still nearby. "Uzo…?" she asked again, but he didn't come to her call. He couldn't hear her anymore.
He would never come to her with that smile that made her feel lighter. She would never see his blue eyes laughing at her again, or feel his fingers ruffling her hair.
She lifted the hand to her face, pressing it against her cheek, and she knew it was his. It was familiar, it was him.
Uzo was dead.
The thought struck her like a physical blow to her heart, and she felt it clench, forcing out the scream. There was no stopping it, her loss demanding a voice, and it was a keening scream of absolute, perfect pain.
She clutched the stone tighter as her eyes burned and tears streaked her face, sucking in enough air only to scream again and again, his name her final wail as it sunk in fully that she had lost the only man who would have loved her unconditionally, who would have taken care of her simply because he was her family, and she had never gotten the chance to tell him just how much she had loved him, never gotten the chance to thank him for everything he had done.
She would never get the chance to thank him, or hold him, or have him scold her for being rude, or encourage her to be what she was.
She had failed him. It was her fault he was dead.
It was entirely her fault.
Her agony cut off with a heart wrenching sob and the thought circled to dig into her, scolding themselves into her very soul. It was her fault; it was all her fault.
A sudden pain in her chest and her world shuddered and then again, and again as she curled in on herself, around the stone that she clutched so tightly to herself.
Her heart thudded once, twice, again and again.
Why hadn't he listened to her, why didn't he just stay away? Why did he have to come back?
Her eyes opened as the dawning thought struck her and something deep inside her was bubbling, boiling.
It wasn't her fault, at least not entirely. The Creators were responsible too. Without them, there would have been no need for any of this. She would never have been dragged across both worlds.
Images of Uzo flicked through her mind, his laughing, and his furious at her, his protective nature that had him always wanting to keep her safe.
The Creators had done this. They were the ones to blame.
That bubbling grew inside her, boiling up until it filled her with a red-hot rage that melted every other thought from her mind.
She wanted to kill, she wanted to rend and taste blood.
She wanted their blood.
Something snapped deep down inside her heart, and she stood, turning to face the portal. Her rage was given voice in a furious scream, her right hand flinging out in the direction of the portal.
Stone forms and living flesh were flung aside as her magic reached for them, branching off like a web to find the lives that weren't hers, that weren't Summer and weren't Gods.
Bodies fell and the air around the gateway lit up in a million sparkles as her magic ripped through it and into Faerie, where they hid.
Her rage reached for them, and she found the men. She reached up into each one of them and the tendrils of her magic found their hearts and crushed them, ending their existence in an instant.
Without thought, her eyes lifted to the sky, and she threw her magic up, her body quivering as she felt the tear in the sky and began to drag it closed.
She could smell blood, taste it in her mouth and her heart thundered as she clenched her fingers, the tear pulling closed and the sky rippled as though she had dropped a pebble into a pond.
Voices everywhere raised in screams of pain as her ears popped and she found her eyes dropping to Epharis. He had frozen, but there was no stone. He was simply terrified.
Her task done, the rage fizzled out, and she was left entirely empty, staring in silence at the lich, even as he stared at her and she stretched a part of her magic for him, wanting him to suffer.
A part of her wanted them all to suffer, to make them scream and writhe in agony just as she had done. She wanted to punish everyone, she wanted to punish that entire world.
The stone was clenched like a vice in her left hand, keeping her constantly aware of what it had cost her to be afraid and now there was no fear, there was no rage or no sorrow, there was nothing but whiteness inside her.
She was finally at peace with herself, and she tilted her head, unable to tear her eyes off him as those around her stood in silence and struggled to come to grips with what had happened.
It had all happened so suddenly, and yet it had taken a lifetime for her.
But she had shut down, and a movement had her looking to see Alez approaching her, his swords outstretched.
She simply watched him, waiting to see what he would do, and when he reached her, he struck. The only problem was, his sword no longer had a blade, and he looked at it.
She did not want him to have a blade anymore, and so it simply ceased to be. She didn't want him to have the second sword either, and as her eyes found it, it too simply ceased to be.
He staggered back from her, his handsome face showing his terror.
She wondered what it might look like if he bled, and a slash appeared over his cheek, making him cry out.