He sputtered, a thick tendril of black spilling from his mouth. It trailed down his chin and traced a path down his neck until it got lost beneath the black cotton that stretched across his unmoving chest.
“Talon!” I screamed, slamming my other palm over the edge of the wound. My fingers collected the hot liquid pulsing from his side, the darkness of it a sickening contrast to the way the color was draining from his face.
I looked around the courtyard, my heart hammering against my ribs.
It was empty.
The Veythar had scattered into the gloom, vanishing at his command like ghosts returning to the ether. The stillness pressed into my lungs until I was gasping for air.
“Someone help!” I shrieked, the sound bouncing off the towering obsidian spires. My vision went hazy, the world blurring into a smear of black and gray. A numbing sensation crawled up my spine, a hollow frost that threatened to swallow me whole. “Please! Someone!”
A scuffle sounded to my right, the friction of boots against stone. I blinked rapidly, clearing the salt from my eyes just as a head of graying hair materialized against the dark backdrop.
Leona was running, her face a mask of focus, a basket of herbs clutched to her chest.
“Kaelia, child,” she panted, her voice thin from the exertion. She skidded to her knees beside us, the basket spilling dried leaves and vials onto the ground. “Keep pressure on the wound. Do not let go.”
I sniffled. “H-he’s not conscious.”
Her trembling hands moved with a frantic speed, ruffling through the mess of her supplies until she produced a gray sheet. It hummed with a light so vibrant it was almost blinding, a cobalt glow that made me wince.
She nudged me aside with a firm gentleness, laying the shimmering fabric across his abdomen.
My hands tightened around the dagger hilt. The metal was a leech, drinking the light from his skin, and the lack of reaction from him—the way his body remained limp and quiet—made my stomach cramp.
“He cannot feel it,” I hiccuped, a sob breaking through. “Is he alive? Tell me he is alive.”
“It is okay,” Leona shushed, though her own fingers were shaking. “I need you to move your hand. I must cover the opening.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, my face scrunching in a grimace as I slowly withdrew my hands. The blackish blood dripped from my fingertips, thick and oily, blending into the dark floor until it was impossible to tell where his life ended and the stone began.
Leona tugged the cobalt sheet lower, draping it over the silver hilt, before she took my wrist and settled my palm atop the fabric.
“Close your eyes,” she instructed. “You must envision sealing a gap. You must call to the spirits, Kaelia.”
I obeyed, dragging a shaky breath into my lungs. I reached out with my mind, searching for the humming energy that usually lived in the corners of the keep.
Only a vast, yawning void greeted me.
My thoughts were scattered like leaves in a gale, my panic making it impossible to find a single thread of energy.
My eyes flew open, darting to Leona in a frenzy. “I cannot! There is nothing there!”
She lifted a hand and patted my shoulder. “You can. And you must. His life is relying on it, child. Look at him.”
The words had me looking toward the wounded man. His skin had turned a sickly, translucent white, and deep violet bruises had blossomed beneath his eyes and nose. The thought of never seeing those eyes pinned on mine again, of never feeling those inked hands steadying me, or those lips against my own, was a terror more potent than any shadow.
I would not let him go. I could not.
I slammed my eyes shut again, pressing down on the wound through the glowing cloth.
I imagined a thick layer of black wisps, a lattice of shadow weaving together. I did not know why the image came to me, but my heart burned with the necessity of it.
A cold rush shot down my arm, and my arms snapped open to find inky streaks pooling at my fingertips.
The shadows entangled, tails wrapping around each other in a frenzied dance. Their bulbous heads tapped against each other until they formed a grid-like structure, with open squares evenly spaced out.
I guided the mass to the dagger, and a chorus of tiny, ethereal squeals filled the air. They moved with a blurring speed, the hilt slotting into a gap in the lattice.