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His head snaps up. “Stop singing!”

There it is.

Not an order this time.

Fear.

Small, but I fucking hear it.

So, I give him more. My voice rises until it hurts, filling every corner of the chamber as Carnage’s hellfire pulls harder toward me. Malgrave snarls something in a language I don’t understand and drives another surge of power into the binding.

This time it hits me back.

The force slams into my chest and sends my boots skidding across the stone. My note breaks for half a second, just long enough for the hellfire to jerk violently toward the chasm.

“No!” Malgrave warns.

I dig my heels in and force the sound back out.

Carnage’s power stops inches from the edge.

Malgrave stares at it, then at me.

The look on his face changes so fast I almost miss it.

He isn’t angry anymore.

He’s staring at me like I just did something I was never supposed to know how to do.

“You can hear it,” he says, quieter now. His gaze drops to my throat before coming back to my face. “You can actually hear the binding.”

I don’t answer him.

I’m too busy listening.

Because he’s right.

Carnage’s hellfire isn’t the only thing responding anymore. Beneath it, beneath Sentinel’s Grace and the Hellwarden power wrapped around both, there’s another sound breaking apart every time my voice hits it.

The binding itself.

I sing again, and one of the symbols beside Malgrave’s hand cracks straight through the middle.

His face drains.

My eyes drop to the broken symbol, then slowly lift to Malgrave.

‘Don’t damage her throat.’ The words he gave Thessaly come rushing back so clearly, I may as well be standing beside that portal again.

Not, don’t hurt her.

Not, bring her alive.

Her throat.

I look at the fear Malgrave is trying and failing to hide, then at the binding cracking beneath the weight of my voice.

And suddenly I know exactly why.