Page 87 of Ruin of Revenants

“Isa?” I ran to her, my heart twisting with terror. “What happened?”

Dropping to my knees, I reached for her, finding her clothes slick with an alarming amount of blood. “Mortius’ shadows,” I cursed.

“I couldn’t risk the castle hallways.” She swallowed thickly, her eyelids fluttering. “Y-you found me.”

“I’ll always find you,” I murmured, cradling her against me.

Flames sparked erratically along her skin, illuminating the wound in her stomach and the bleeding gash in her shoulder. Flaming underworld, I thought. I didn’t hesitate, not even when I felt her sparks singe my clothes and heat my hands. Those bursts of pain were nothing compared to what I was already enduring with her.

I pressed my palms to the worst wound—the one in her gut—desperate to do anything to save her.

“Can you resurrect?” I whispered. “Is that what your flames are doing?”

She was weak, her voice was a breath I had to lean forward to hear. “Need…someone. To help.”

Lifting her, I swept back through the tunnel to my room. Her head lulled against my chest, and in the daylight, I could see how alarmingly pale and weak she’d grown.

“Tell me how to save you.” My words came out in a frantic rush. “Who do you need to help you? What must I do? Where do we go?”

“I…” She was losing consciousness, her eyelids fluttering again.

“Isa!” I cried out, rushing into my washroom and laying her in the tub as her flames sparked brighter. “Wake up. Stay with me.”

I began rifling wildly through my washroom cabinets, searching for any supplies that could help me with stopping her blood loss. “Open your eyes, Isa,” I begged. “Don’t go.”

When I turned, her eyes remained shut and she was so quiet and still, terror gripped me. Was she already gone?

“Isoria!” I roared. I knelt beside her, feeling for a pulse. It was faint, but there. “Please. Please don’t leave me.”

Fury like I’d never felt before overtook me, the only thing dulling the panic climbing my throat. I would not lose myself in terror now, would not drown in numbness and despair.

First, I was going to save Isoria. A world without her in it was not an option. I wouldn’t even consider it.

Then I was going to find who’d wounded her and I was going to kill them.

If my emotions hadn’t been all-consuming, I might have wondered why I felt this way or tried to blame it all on self-preservation. But the spike of panic racing through my veins hadn’t started to think about our bond and what the consequences of her injury would be.

I called for Orchid, who blanched as soon as she found Isoria in my tub, her wounds filling it with blood.

“Do not let her die,” I ground out.

“I could call for a healer,” she choked out.

“No! No one else can see her. No one else can know.” More sparks surrounded Isoria, and Orchid blinked, terror and confusion warring across her expression. “We have to help her resurrect. Her sparks are there—no healer can see and know.”

There was blood on my hands and shirt as I turned, prepared to storm back into the secret passage. But shifting shadows blocked my path.

My blood turned to ice the same moment I noticed that my pain nearly vanished, all but a distant echo of my pain snuffed out like a candleflame. No. I knew what that meant—I was losing her.

“Mortius,” I pleaded, dropping to my knees. “Don’t do this, not now. Please. Spare her. Give me another curse to bear. Anything.”

This time, the god of death didn’t laugh while I kneeled for him. His grating voice almost sounded…understanding. “Begging cannot stop death.” His shadows swirled until they coalesced into the shape of a male hovering over me.

“But she’s a phoenix shifter. She can defy death.”

“Her time to do that draws short.”

“Shouldn’t I be dying too? Are you here for me too, because of our bond?”