I finally exhaled after what felt like an eternity of waiting.
"Hehee."
Lafarhul had regained some of her power—the same power that had been torn away when she clashed with Lothair back at the False Ender castle during the Heavenly Banquet chaos.
The wound had left her diminished for weeks, as her infernal might leaked out like blood from a cracked vessel, but now the air around her carried that familiar oppressive weight again, heavy and scalding, like standing too close to a forge that had just roared back to life.
I watched her from my desk in the library, the massive oak surface buried under scrolls, ledgers, and half-finished alchemy notes that smelled faintly of ink mixed with the sharp ozone of recent spell residue.
