The air reeked of blood and smoke. Kael wiped his blade clean on a dead man\u2019s cloak and stepped over the bodies littering the temple\u2019s shattered floor. At the altar, the sorcerer still stood, robed in shadow, his hands weaving magic Kael could barely see. <\/p>\n
“You’re too late,” the sorcerer hissed. The air darkened, warping as a jagged portal clawed open. <\/p>\n
Kael lunged. His sword, cold iron and stolen magic, bit into flesh. The sorcerer crumpled, but the portal remained. From within, something vast and writhing stirred.<\/p>\n
A choice. Seal it with his own blood\u2014or let the creature through.<\/p>\n
Cursing, Kael drove his sword into his palm, smearing his lifeblood across the glowing runes. Shadowed tendrils lashed toward him, then collapsed as the portal screamed shut.<\/p>\n
He staggered, breath ragged. The temple lay quiet but for the whispers in his mind. The thing had not left him untouched.<\/p>\n
Kael cursed again. He had won\u2014but he had not won cleanly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The battle was over, but something remained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fantasy","category-fiction"],"_wp_attached_file":null,"_wp_attachment_metadata":null,"_thumbnail_id":"1130","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyisinfinite.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}