The air within the derelict church courtyard was no longer just air; it had become a soup of volatile energies. The purple-gold radiance exploding from the junction of Dayat's and Dola's bodies was far from a mere light show. To any mage in Bakasa, it looked like a heresy—a violent, screaming intrusion of Earth's physical laws being forced, unlubricated, into the magical reality of Aethera.
Dayat felt as if his very marrow was being replaced by molten lead. His nervous system screamed, sending signals of agony that no human was designed to process. Every cell in his body felt like it was being interrogated by a thousand white-hot needles.
