Page 122 of Shackled By Shadows

The magic I bound us with was never a perfect science. I can feel her. Her fear, her pain, but not her exact location. My shadows surge up around me, engulfing my body as I pull myself toward the source of it.

I reemerge in a forest. The silence makes my blood run cold.

“No,” I whisper. “Am I too late?”

I can’t be too late.

Panic overwhelms every other sense as I start running, weaving through towering trees in the darkness. Then I catch her scent. My heart slams against my ribs. I move faster, breath tearing from my lungs as I follow it before reaching a clearing.

My body freezes.

I nearly collapse, catching myself against the rough bark of a tree. It bites into my palms, skin splitting as my knees threaten to give out. “I’m too late.”

I force myself forward anyway. The scene before me steals what little breath I have left. Lyra, Ash, and Zander lie motionless on the ground.

They were supposed to be safe. She was supposed to be safe.

I left her. Even when she begged me to stay, I turned away.

I told myself it was the only way to keep her hidden, to make sure no one knew how deeply she mattered to me. To protect her from myself, from the truth of who and what I am.

My steps falter as I reach her, dread crushing my chest until it hurts to breathe. “Please be alive,” I whisper, over and over. A broken mantra. “Please be alive.”

I can’t lose them. I can’t lose her.

Nothing I could possibly accomplish would be worth it without her beside me, without her there to see the world we were meant to tear down and rebuild together.

I rush to her and drop to my knees, scooping her into my arms.

She’s limp, frighteningly still.

I thought I would have time, time to make things right. “Please, Lyra,” I beg aloud.

Her chest rises. Her breathing is shallow, barely there, but it is there.

Relief crashes through me so hard it nearly hurts. I pull her closer, pressing her to my chest as a breath shudders out of me, one I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Thank the gods.”

My healing magic is weak compared to a true healer’s. It will never be enough to fully mend her, but it’s enough to keep her alive, enough to buy time. I pour every last thread of it into her. Every ounce of the small, stubborn magic my mother left me.

Her breathing steadies.

My chest tightens painfully with every rise and fall of her lungs, every beat of her heart echoing through my own. The sensation is overwhelming, consuming. This need, this obsession with her safety, burns through me until it’s all I can feel.

And still, I failed her.

Relief fades, replaced by something bitter and sharp. Anger. At myself. “Who hurt you?” I whisper, knowing she can’t answer.

I place a soft kiss on the top of her head, lingering and savoring in the small moment, breathing her scent in deeply before I carefully lay her back on the ground and force myself to stand.

I turn to Ash next. He’s slumped against a tree, soaked in blood, with deep gashes carved down his exposed chest. Tatters of his clothing litter the ground around him. He’s holding on barely, I can see it in the way his shoulders sag, the way his breathing drags. He doesn’t have the strength to open a portal, not yet, not without help.

I step closer and rest a hand on his shoulder, careful not to jostle him, and feed my remaining energy into him. It leaves me hollow, but it’s enough. Enough to get them home.

“Wraithmoor,” I tell him quietly. It’s the only place that can help them.

His eyes flick up to mine briefly before closing again.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” I add, the words heavy on my tongue. “I was too late.”