Arya Interlude

  Pain.

  It was a word that barely encompassed what she had endured. Durza had been meticulous, patient. He was no ordinary torturer, content with the crude tools of iron and fire. No, his weapons were far crueler: sorcery and the mind itself.

  He had shredded her defenses, peeling back layers of thought with the ease of a master sculptor working soft clay. He had not needed to break her body—not at first. Instead, he let her own mind betray her.

  Illusions blurred with reality. Her mother stood before her, lips moving, speaking words that made no sense. Then the vision changed, and it was Oromis, the one she respected more than any other in the world, eyes alight with anger, blaming her for his suffering, his voice the perfect mimicry of truth. Another moment, and she was in Ellesméra, her people turning their backs on her, their rejection colder than steel.

  And then the agony began in earnest.

  Durza had grown bored with whispers and half-truths. His magic flayed her nerves, his will suffocating hers, his presence a sickly weight pressing upon her mind. His laughter was a serrated thing, cutting deep.

  But she had endured. Somehow, she had endured.

  Even as her will eroded, even as her mind frayed like a rope worn too thin, she clung to herself. She refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her break.

  Then the world shook.

  The fortress shuddered like a wounded beast, stones screaming as they cracked. The torches guttered, shadows stretching long and monstrous along the walls.

  And then came the roar.

  A sound of primal fury, of fire and wrath given form. It was no beast’s cry, no mindless bellow—it was something far worse. Something intelligent. Something furious.

  Durza turned, eyes narrowing. He reached out with his power, seeking, probing—

  Pain.

  Not his own. Not Arya’s. Something else. Something vast and burning and impossibly bright.

  Durza recoiled. His expression twisted in something she had never seen before.

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  Fear.

  Then the wall exploded inward.

  Stone shattered, dust billowing in thick clouds, and through the ruin stepped destruction incarnate.

  Lung.

  He was monstrous—no longer even remotely human. He had grown beyond reason, beyond limits. His form had swollen, muscles layered upon muscles, his very presence suffocating.

  But it was his eyes that held her.

  They burned.

  Like twin suns, radiating fury and something deeper, something older. An animal hunger, yes—but also a will unbreakable, a resolve so absolute it made her breath catch.

  Durza struck first.

  His hands wove through the air, the ancient language spilling from his lips, power gathering in the air. A lance of darkness, unnatural and writhing, shot forth—

  Lung did not move.

  The spell struck his chest and vanished.

  Not reflected. Not blocked. Simply… gone.

  Durza hesitated.

  Lung moved.

  Faster than anything his size should be capable of, he closed the distance in an instant. His clawed hand shot forward—Durza barely twisted aside, the sheer force of the attack shattering the stone floor beneath them.

  Another spell—this one a burst of kinetic force meant to send Lung flying. It failed.

  Lung was adapting. Growing.

  And then he unleashed something new.

  His old scales—battered, cracked, and broken—detonated outward like shrapnel, a storm of burning fragments forcing Durza back. And in that moment of hesitation, Lung surged forward.

  He grew.

  His body expanded, his form mutating further, interlocking plates of gleaming scales replacing what had been lost. His back erupted in vents, raw energy coursing through them, propelling him forward with impossible speed.

  Durza was fast. But Lung was faster.

  A clawed hand, now nearly the size of a man, closed around Durza’s throat. The Shade struggled, twisting, writhing—

  Then he stopped.

  Something unseen passed between them.

  A clash of minds.

  Arya felt it.

  Durza had thrown everything he had into a final, desperate gambit. His will surged forward, a tidal wave of malice, trying to crush Lung from within.

  For a moment, Lung froze.

  Then Arya saw it.

  Not with her eyes, not with any magic she knew—something other.

  Durza’s will touched something vast. Something that burned.

  A mind that was not a mind. A presence that was a roaring inferno, endless and consuming.

  And then Durza screamed.

  He thrashed in Lung’s grasp, his body convulsing, his mouth opening wide in a silent, horrified wail.

  Because he was being unmade.

  Not killed. Not destroyed.

  Torn apart.

  His mind shredded, unraveling like a tapestry set to flame. Thoughts, memories, self—all devoured, all incinerated in the face of something so utterly beyond him that he had never even conceived of its existence.

  Then, silence.

  Lung released what was left.

  Durza’s body crumpled. His eyes were empty.

  Arya could still feel it. That presence. That thing within Lung.

  And for the first time, she realized something.

  Lung was no mere man. No mere beast.

  He was a vessel. A carrier of something vast and unknowable.

  Something that had just learned what it meant to take offense.

  And Durza had paid the price.

  Her vision swam. The pain, the exhaustion—it was too much. The last thing she saw was Lung turning toward her, his monstrous form looming—

  And then, darkness.