Page 14 of Too Dangerous To Die

I search my mind,ancient, fractured memories shifting through my skull like shattered glass.

Suddenly, I remember.

Not far from here, beyond the river of black stone, there is a place where the earth itselfbleeds with magic.

A ruin older than even the ones she found me in. A place wherethe veils between life and death are thinner than bone.

It is my only chance.Her only chance.

And I am not above gambling withforbidden thingsif it means keeping her alive.

I land hard, wings barely catching the impact as I stagger forward.The ground here is wrong.The trees are twisted, their barkas dark as onyx, the roots curling up from the soil like reaching hands. The air isthick, humming with a magic so old it no longer has a name.

I drop to my knees, cradling her against me.She does not stir.

"Nora."

Nothing.

She is slipping. I feel it,a pull in my chest, an emptiness I do not know how to fight.

The bond is breaking.

A snarl tears from my throat. Icannot let this happen. I can’t lose her. This feeling is so strong, it’s overwhelming. I don’t know the reason why I’m feeling this way. It might be the bond, but it’s also something else.

Gritting my teeth, Islice my palm openwith one of my own claws, feeling the hot rush of blood spill over my skin. The old magic here—it responds to sacrifice. To price.

And I am willing to pay.

I press mybleeding handto the earth, forcing the weight of my will into the soil.

"Take what you want," I whisper, voice laced withferal desperation.

The groundshudders beneath me.

A soft, whispering wind coils through the clearing, and theroots of the trees begin to shift.

I feel the magic stirring,uncoiling from its slumber.

Apresence awakens.

Ancient. Hungry.

It watches. It waits.

I pull Nora closer, baring my teeth at the unseen thing that lingers just beyond the edge of the veil.

"Give her back," I growl, the demandcarved from stone and fire.

The windlaughs.

Something presses against my mind,a weight, a knowing.It sees me. It seesher.

And it knows thetruth of what we are.

"You ask for a gift that is not freely given," a voice whispers from the dark. “She’s supposed to die today. A being like her should not live. Purna is your enemy and this one will awaken evil.”

I feel the wordscoil through my ribs, settling deep into my marrow.

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