Chapter 80 - Cradled

  Ariel lay there, panting hard.

  She didn’t even try to fight.

  She just lay there, breath ragged and shallow.

  For a horrible second, Lilia wasn’t even sure she was still there.

  And yet—

  Lilia hesitated.

  She stepped forward.

  One step.

  And stopped.

  Her hands lingered uselessly in the air, fingers half-curled like they meant to reach out but couldn’t remember how.

  Why aren’t I moving?

  Ariel needs me.

  So why aren’t I moving?

  Time slowed.

  The sound of Ariel’s breathing.

  The wet grind of the creature’s limb pressing deeper.

  The faint tremor in the ground.

  I’m scared.

  No.

  Terrified.

  Lilia realised it fully, cleanly, in that moment.

  Ryn wasn’t strong enough to protect her this time.

  Ariel’s power wasn’t strong enough.

  If she ran in there—

  There was almost no guarantee she could change anything.

  Almost no guarantee she would even survive.

  But she knew that, right?

  She had always believed she was ready to face a real battle.

  One with her life truly on the line.

  She had said she didn’t need Ryn or Ariel shielding her anymore.

  But—

  Maybe she had only felt ready because, deep down, there had always been a guarantee.

  That if things went too far.

  If she faltered.

  Someone stronger would step in.

  Maybe she had grown too used to being protected.

  Too used to being cradled by power that wasn’t her own.

  Now, faced with the weight of real death—

  Not distant.

  Not abstract.

  Here.

  Breathing.

  She froze.

  Move.

  She begged her body.

  It refused.

  Ariel screamed again.

  And still—

  Her maid couldn’t move.

  Is this what you meant, Ryn?

  That I’d only understand when it was real?

  A desperate, trembling laugh slipped from Lilia’s lips.

  “I think I’m finally getting it…”

  The creature leaned down, broken mandibles spreading wide, shadow swallowing what little light remained.

  Then—

  Through the smoke—

  A blade flashed.

  Ryn burst forward from the dark, forehead split and bleeding, his sword clenched between his teeth. His remaining arm hung limp at his side, soaked red.

  He didn’t slow.

  Didn’t hesitate.

  He drove past the creature’s guard and, in one brutal motion—

  Severed the leg, pinning her.

  The creature barely had time to react.

  Ryn was already moving.

  He leapt high, body twisting midair, and tore his blade across the creature’s already-damaged chitinl. Steel bit into fractured carapace, widening the split Ariel had made. Dark fluid sprayed.

  The aberration reeled.

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  Disoriented, it lashed out blindly, mandibles stretching wide, limbs stabbing through empty air.

  But Ryn was already airborne again.

  He angled himself toward the barely healed fracture in its skull — the wound Ariel had carved open — sword still clenched between his teeth, blood running down his chin from his split brow.

  He dove.

  The creature jerked at the last second.

  The blade missed the head by inches and sank deep into its torso instead.

  The impact drove Ryn downward with it. He ripped the weapon free as he landed, boots skidding across broken stone.

  The aberration shrieked and sprang back, defensive now.

  It leapt high, claws digging into the side of the ruined temple, clinging there above them — retreating from immediate reach.

  Avoiding Ryn.

  Or buying time to lick its wounds.

  Or both, Lilia thought.

  “Lilia!” Ryn shouted.

  She didn’t register it at first.

  The sound felt distant. Muffled.

  “Lilia!”

  Her head snapped up.

  “Check on Ariel!”

  He didn’t wait.

  His eyes flicked to her leg.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Huh?

  What are you talking about?

  What about you?

  He was bleeding from everywhere.

  “Don’t worry,” he said.

  “I have an idea.”

  He said it so confidently.

  Then he turned and ran to meet the creature again.

  “Ryn…” Lilia whispered.

  But she nodded slowly.

  And ran toward Ariel.

  Two steps in—

  Her knee buckled violently.

  She crashed down onto one leg.

  Confused, she twisted slightly—

  There was a spike embedded through the back of her calf.

  Thin.

  Needle-like.

  That’s what he meant.

  She hadn’t even felt it.

  Her breathing steadied.

  If she pulled it out now, she’d bleed more.

  Worse.

  She snapped the protruding end short instead and forced herself upright.

  Then she ran again toward Ariel.

  ***

  Ryn ran — then slowed.

  He tilted his head up toward the creature clinging to the temple wall.

  “It really likes that temple, doesn’t it…”

  He wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand, smearing red across already torn skin.

  “I have a theory,” he muttered. “Let’s see if it’s true.”

  He dropped his sword.

  He bit down on his shoulder and yanked, forcing the dislocated joint back into place.

  Bending slightly, he picked up a loose fragment of rubble from the temple’s shattered entrance. Old stone. Weathered. Cracked.

  He weighed it once in his palm.

  Then threw.

  The stone cut through the air and struck one of the creature’s front legs.

  For a second—

  Nothing.

  Then the limb made a sharp, brittle sound.

  A thin crack split across its surface.

  Not deep.

  But real.

  The fracture sealed almost immediately, flesh knitting back together.

  But it had cracked.

  Ryn exhaled through his nose.

  “…Guess I was right.”

  ***

  Lilia was on her knees.

  Ariel lay across her lap, body trembling, breath coming in shallow, broken pulls. Each inhale sounded wrong — thin, strained — as if the air refused to settle in her lungs.

  The leg had been removed from her shoulder.

  But the wound—

  Lilia stared at it.

  It wasn’t healing.

  It wasn’t even trying to.

  Blood soaked through torn fabric, dark and steady. The flesh around it looked… unstable. The golden fractures spreading across her skin pulsed faintly, crawling over nearly half her body now.

  They had reached her eye.

  That eye was half-lidded and glowing a violent gold, unfocused and distant.

  Ariel groaned again.

  Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes.

  They glowed too.

  Gold.

  None of this was natural.

  What do I do?

  Lilia’s mind raced.

  Her hands moved by instinct.

  She tore away the ruined fabric around the wound and pressed both palms firmly against Ariel’s shoulder Direct pressure.

  “Ariel, breathe,” she urged, voice desperate.

  She shifted Ariel slightly, angling her upright just enough to keep her airway open. Checked her pulse at the neck.

  Too weak.

  The blood didn’t clot properly beneath her hands. It welled between her fingers, warm and relentless.

  Lilia tore a strip of cloth from her sleeve and packed it tightly against Ariel’s shoulder, pressing down hard over the wound.

  Normally—

  This would slow it.

  Normally, this would help.

  But the flesh around the injury felt wrong beneath her palms. Too hot. Too rigid where the cracks spread. The golden fractures throbbed under the skin like something alive, resisting her touch.

  The bleeding didn’t stop.

  Ariel’s breathing didn’t steady.

  Her glowing eye twitched faintly.

  Lilia pressed harder.

  “Stay with me,” she pleaded.

  But even as she did everything she had been trained to do—

  It wasn’t working.

  Lilia’s hands stilled.

  She gave up trying to force the bleeding to stop.

  “Ariel…” she muttered desperately. “Use your power. Heal yourself.”

  Ariel didn’t respond for a long time.

  Her breathing remained shallow. Shaking.

  Then, through the haze of agony, something slipped past her lips. So quiet Lilia almost missed it.

  “I can’t…”

  Lilia blinked.

  For a second, she thought she had misheard.

  “What?”

  Ariel dragged in another fractured breath. Her fingers twitched weakly against Lilia’s sleeve.

  “I can’t,” she whispered again, the words barely surviving the pain.

  “I can’t heal myself with my power,” Ariel managed to force out.

  Lilia’s mind reeled.

  It didn't make sense.

  “There’s no way,” she said quickly, almost sharply. “That’s not true. That can’t be true.”

  But the more she reached back through her memories, the more something cold began to settle in her chest.

  Not once.

  Not once had she seen Ariel use her blessing on herself.

  She had healed Lilia. Even Ryn.

  But never—

  Herself.

  Was it her own carelessness that had let this slip by?

  No… Ariel hadn’t been injured often. Not like this.

  But still—

  She should have known.

  She should have noticed.

  The realization tightened around her throat, but when she spoke, the words that left her mouth didn’t match the thoughts inside her.

  “…Why didn’t you let us know?”

  A stretch of silence followed, behind her, the clash erupted again, stone splitting, and the violent scrape of steel against carapace as Ryn fought on.

  Ariel whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  Lilia went still.

  The battlefield noise faded into something distant and hollow.

  For several long seconds, she said nothing.

  Her hands tightened slightly where they held Ariel in place.

  “…Again?”