5.Repudiation.n-5.46.1-Neshamah

The Hierophant rose from his throne, gasping a breath, and the Grey Pilgrim beheld the rotten orb that was the Dead King’s hold being torn out of him. It still held by threads, and was slowly its way back into the villain’s soul, but if they acted now.

...

Trismegistus leaned over Masego’s shoulder looking into the distance.

“Did I not tell you?” the Dead King said. “You overestimate yourself. To be rid of me there will be a price.”

And though the Hidden Horror’s hold was ripped out of him, it did not go alone. For the all the power and sorcery the Hierophant had been holding vanished into smoke, and there was not a single piece of it left.

Masego reached for his magic, and found nothing at all.

- Book 5, Interlude: Reverberation

-----

We’d won, so naturally in the heartbeat that followed it all went to shit. Masego stumbled down his throne with gasping breaths, fingers blindly clawing at the rune-carve stone. He’d always been tall, but never before had I seen him so thin – it made him look spindly, like some long-legged insect in ragged black robes. The sorcery that’d been hanging heavy in the air was gone now, like some great gust of wind had blown it out, and I suspected that whatever it was that’d achieved that was the same thing that had Masego’s limbs trembling. Heaving, he began to puke and I had to restrain myself from going to him after taking a unthinking step forward. It’d have to wait just a little longer, graceless as that truth was. Before the rest I needed to be sure that I wasn’t going to be asked to make an ugly choice between two people I dearly loved.

“Pilgrim,” I said. “What ails him, does it threaten his life?”

Even if the man did not know, the Ophanim would.

- Book 5, Chapter 46: Abdication