Page 95 of Gift from the Stone

“Sounds a little complicated to me, kitten.”

“I think it’s a lot like grounding into the earth, but depending on where you ground your magic, you need to make sure it doesn’t flow completely out. It’s good to know if there was ever a reason to not be able to ground myself to the earth.”

“You smart, magnificent Primary. I wonder if you knew this would happen when we had that conversation…” I whisper, looking at her in awe. Her beautiful fair skin is beginning to turn grayish-blue and her veins are bulging black streaks. The sight of her both tears me up and fills me with determination.

“Listen to me, sweetness, I know you’re struggling to move right now, but you’re going to have to. Guys, touch her,” I command the others, and I hold on tighter to the grip I have on her hand.

“Ground your magic into us, little wanderer. Focus on your magic flowing through every inch of your body and into the places you feel our hands. Push, Willow, you can do it. Guys, don’t let it flow into you. Push it back to her and hold.” It feels like an eternity before the soft stroke of her magic meets my hand and I let out a sob.

“Good girl. Good job, princess,” Corentin chokes out as he leans down and kisses her on the forehead.

Lifting her hand, her arm gives no support whatsoever, so I use my other hand to hold it up. “Okay, little wanderer, push your magic out. I got you. I’m right here with you.”

As I feel her magic push a little against where our hands are connected, I release a deep breath, trying to clear my vision from where it’s beginning to become hazy, and begin drawing the circle she showed me that night in the open space.

When the points meet, with shaky hands, I drag the zipper down the middle, opening her dimension. A beautiful wall of liquid silver opens in front of us, and I stare at it in amazement. The color is a perfect match to both her eyes and the scales of her dragon.

“There’s a wooden box inside, Draken. It’ll have all the cures in it,” Oakly informs me, her bloodshot eyes begging me to hurry.

There’s an intense resistance when I try to reach my hand in before a shock races across my hand and up my arm. Gritting my teeth through the pain, I push our hands through, the essence of her magic caressing my skin in a loving touch, and I savor the feeling for a brief second, then push further until I feel the box.

Pushing my other hand through the silvery opening, it’s fucking tricky getting a grip on the box, but I’m not letting her hand go. Elementra herself wouldn’t be able to pull my hand from hers. Her skin on mine is the only tether I have to her right now. I don’t know if she’s trying or able to block me out or if her bond is just consumed and bogged down, but regardless, I can’t feel anything coming from her.

I swear my heart stops beating as I hand the box over to Oakly and wait as she rummages through the vials until she comes to the right one. She slowly hands me a glowing black vial, and the weight of it feels like the entire realm is resting in my palm.

My little wanderer’s eyes are completely black with tar running out the corners of them instead of clear tears, and my blurred vision reflects what she’s going through. I’m not suffering the true effects of the poison like she is, but the piece that I’m experiencing through our bond is excruciating and debilitating. My hands feel like they weigh a ton as I struggle to get the cap off the vial, and I can barely see a few inches in front of me.

“Guys…” I rasp, my body beginning to fail me, as hers is failing her. Each breath is a laborious effort; the air itself has grown thick and resistant.

“We got you, Draken,” Caspian says as he wraps his hand around mine. Followed by Tillman and Corentin. They each have a grasp on me and as one, we feed Willow the cure.

No sound is filtering through my ears and my sight of them fades as I vaguely make out the last drop of the cure pour through her lips. When they pull their hands from mine, I slump into a sea of silence, endless darkness, on the ground beside her. I can’t hold the weight of my body up, but I hold on to her hand with every ounce of strength I have left. This is truly what dying feels like.

I want to rage to the skies, roar as loud as I can at the unfairness of this. Why Elementra would send my little wanderer on a suicide mission to save a fucking wolf is beyond me. Why bless me with the greatest fucking person, people, in this whole realm just to rip us away.

My angry thoughts start slipping away, becoming garbled messes as my consciousness wanes like the dying embers of one of my fires. Memories become wisps, fading into the recesses of my mind as I start to lose my grip on reality and all I think about with my last logical moment is them.

Little wanderer, kitten, sweetness, dragon goddess, Willow. I love you more than anything in this realm and any other. You’ve given me a love I never knew possible. I’ll meet you in the beyond and we’ll soar through the skies forever as we wait for them to join us.

Guys, I know I’ve been the biggest pain in the ass and an annoying little brother, but you guys have given me a life I never could’ve dreamed of fourteen years ago and I’m more thankful for that than you’ll ever know. We’ll watch over you. If Elementra allows it, I’ll send you guys some signs of us, maybe light some shit on fire for you. I love you, brothers.

In this realm of relentless darkness, time has no meaning. Whether it’s been seconds or eternities that have passed, I have no way to tell. It’s an unsettling feeling knowing that I’m still alive, trapped in this void, yet so close to death.

Or maybe this is death.

Maybe death is just a suffocating blackness that swallows every hint of existence. Just a formless void, a realm without light, shape, or boundaries. A darkness that keeps pressing in on every side, a noticeable weight that clings to my skin, gluing my dragon’s wings to his body, and seeps into the marrow of my bones.

My eyes strain in vain against the impenetrable dark. I have no distinction between whether they’re open or closed, as both pose the same damn solid curtain of nothingness. Where I can usually hear absolutely anything, footsteps, distant chatter, fuck, even rustling leaves in the forest behind our home, here there’s nothing but an eerie silence.

Hell, I don’t even know if I can hear myself think.

Which wouldn’t matter much. My thoughts are slipping away, like fragments of a dream slipping through my desperate fingers. I try my best to hold onto every single thought that surrounds my little wanderer. If she’s the only thought I can grasp and hold onto for however long I’ll be stuck in this meaningless void, then that’ll be fine with me.

Her light brown hair cascades down to her waist and curls around my fingers as she throws her head back, laughing at something I said. Fuck, that musical little giggle that makes my heart skip a beat and my mind whirl on anything else I can say to make her sing it again.

The electricity that zaps through my body when her fair skin touches my sun-kissed tan. I mentally try to map out the few scars on her body that tell the story of the horrors she’s been through. To her, they’re brutal reminders, but to me, they’re a road map to my paradise.

And her smell…

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