Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16)

by Jim Butcher

She leaned back her head, took a breath, and opened that eye, the Eye, screaming. The scream itself threatened to deafen me by sheer volume, but it was far, far more painful than that. I could feel it press against the vaults of my mind, emotion so violent and intense that it would tear my sanity to pieces if I let even a portion of it into my head. Light erupted from Ethniu, lashing out furiously at the ceiling. Where it touched the hanging swaths of fabric, they rotted and flaked away, scorching at the edges and bursting into flame. When it touched the ceiling, there was an enormous concussion, and the dark grey stone of the castle suddenly erupted with cold blue glowing light emanating from previously unseen runes and sigils written on every surface. I could feel a surge of pressure, which might have put out my ears had it been physical, as the castle’s magical defenses pitted themselves against the power of a goddess. They failed. Stone shattered to dust, and energy exploded upward through the ceiling, through the upper floor, and through the roof into the summer night. Pure magical energy surged out with it, through the room, into the night, in a wave of such breadth and power that five minutes before, I would have considered it impossible.