The Blinding

Chapter 65 - Loyaan

Samkaab's footsteps fell in sync with mine, a desperate race against time. We leaped over a macabre landscape of bodies, both the living and the lifeless, their distinction blurred by the frenzy of battle. My gaze dared not linger upon the fallen; I had no desire to ascertain the nature of their fate. Not when Shire was within arm's reach of Tissa, poised to extinguish her life. The tent loomed large in my vision, and it mirrored Samakaab's singular focus.
Then, the air was pierced by agonized shrieks, their intensity eclipsing the cacophony of war that surrounded us. I longed to halt, to comprehend the source of such anguished cries, but the chilling sound only propelled me to push harder, to propel myself faster toward the tent.
I glanced once more at the tent, straining my eyes through the maelstrom of combatants, soldiers, and council members who seemed oblivious to the heart-wrenching wails or too ensnared in their struggles to react. Gradually, the scene within the tent came into stark focus. I beheld the elderly councilman collapsing to the ground, though whether it was Shire or the councilman, I couldn't ascertain. However, what transpired next seized my attention.
Tissa emerged from the tent, her countenance etched in pain, her feet stained with the crimson hue of her fallen friend's blood. It was a sight that gripped my heart. And then, an event so profound and surreal unfolded that it arrested my movement. Tissa erupted into flames, her radiance transcending her usual ethereal glow. I sensed Samkaab, too, come to a sudden stop beside me, uncertainty etched across his face, mirroring my own bewilderment.
In the span of mere moments, the truth unfurled before us. Tissa's fire, an inferno of raw power, surged forth from her outstretched fingers, unerringly finding its mark. Shire, the puppeteer of death, took the brunt of her fiery wrath directly to his chest. His body convulsed before morphing into his true form, the fire of her will incinerating his very essence. He crumbled to the ground in a lifeless heap, nestled beside the man he had so recently murdered. The Prime Minister had met his end, vanquished by the very power he had sought to exploit.