“Fall back!” His command cut through the chaos. “We have what we came for!”
The world became motion and snow and the steady rhythm of his stride as he ran. Elsa couldn’t track their route, couldn’t focus past the power singing through her veins from the crystal’s proximity.
Too much. Everything was too much.
Consciousness slipped like sand through her fingers.
The last thing she registered was Sylas’s voice, low and furious, muttering something in his own language that the translator didn’t catch.
And the way his arms tightened around her, protective and possessive all at once.
Then darkness swallowed everything whole.
9
Sylas
The medical bay stank of antiseptic and failure.
Sylas paced the perimeter while Yarx worked, his claws scraping stone in a rhythm that matched the too-fast hammer of his pulse. The healer moved between monitoring equipment and the Tear Dome with practiced efficiency, checking readings, adjusting settings, muttering observations into his data recorder.
Three hours since they’d crashed through the fortress gates. Three hours since Yarx had peeled Elsa from Sylas’s arms, barking orders about cellular shock and energy overload.
She still hadn’t woken.
The Tear Dome pulsed with soft blue light, wrapping her in healing energy that should have revived her by now. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. Color had returned to skin that had gone gray-white when she’d collapsed, the crystal clutched against her sternum like she’d been trying to merge with it.
But her eyes stayed closed. Her body remained limp.
Useless.
“Explain it again.” His voice came out rougher than intended, the growl beneath barely leashed.
Yarx didn’t look up from his tablet. “The Moon Tear core resonated with her bracer. Amplified the energy output beyond what human physiology can process.” His amber eyes flicked to Sylas, then back to the unconscious female. “The neural pathways overloaded. I’ve stabilized the immediate damage, but—”
“But you don’t know if there’s permanent harm,” Sylas finished, the words tasting like ash.
The healer’s ears flattened in confirmation.
Six steps to the wall. Turn. Six steps back. The rhythm did nothing to quiet the snarl building in his chest, the frustration that coiled tighter with every minute she didn’t wake.
He’d carried her through the storm-woods, her weight negligible in his arms, her scent wrapping around him even through unconsciousness. The Fallen had pursued for half a mile before Ryxin’s reinforcements cut them off, buying enough distance to reach the gates.
All of it worthless if she died in a healing dome because her species was too fragile for the tools it had stolen.
“The bracer tracks location.” Sylas stopped mid-stride, claws flexing against his palms. “It’s not designed to channel Moon Tear energy directly. How did the core trigger this reaction?”
“That’s the question I can’t answer.” Yarx moved to adjust the dome’s settings, his movements careful. Precise. “Standard bracers are shielded. They interact with the grid but don’t draw power through the wearer.” He gestured to the pulsing gem on Elsa’s wrist, visible through the translucent barrier. “Hers responded differently. As if her biology completed a circuit the core recognized.”
The implications crawled under Sylas’s skin like parasites.
Humans and Moon Tears shouldn’t interact beyond the crude technological applications they’d developed. Their species lacked the physical adaptations to handle raw crystal energy—that’s why they used it so poorly, diluting it to fractions of its potential to avoid killing themselves.
Direct exposure drove Yzefrxyl males to madness after prolonged contact. It should have killed her outright.
Instead, she’d held the core for nearly a full minute before collapsing.
His beast preened with satisfaction at her strength. His king’s mind calculated the threat she represented.