Mere inches from his fingertips.
Shit, shit, shit!
He couldn’t grab it.
He tried to pull himself up higher, muscles on fire from the strain, and he gritted his teeth as he snarled from the exertion. He could feel gravity trying to drag him down, the ache in hisbody stabbing into him, but he kept going. He had to do this. He had to. He couldn’t give up.
But then he heard Sariel scream.
Seymour whipped his head back and nearly lost his grip on the slippery crystal, but he needed to see what was happening.
Oh…
Oh no.
One of Sariel’s wings was not flapping, and he was barely staying in the air. His legs dangled frighteningly close to the snapping jaws of the wyrm, and Day’s best efforts to distract it had done little more than earn her some tail swipes. The lantern men didn’t seem to be breaking through the wyrm’s tough hide, and at least a dozen of them got thrown off as it whipped its tail with a furious snarl. A few of them had been speared on the giant spike, flailing wildly.
Seymour stared back at the crystal.
Fuck—okay, he was almost there.
He could get it.
He had to get it.
He had a mission, a goal, and he had to finish it. Nothing else mattered becausenothingelsemattered. Everyone and everything always left, it all ended, he was always alone, and?—
To avoid this fate, you need to change your path as soon as you can.
Oh.
This was it.
The moment that would change everything.
Seymour was passionate and brave, but he was also stubborn, selfish, and arrogant. He’d spent years alone, angry and aching for something more he couldn’t put a name to. Nothing had ever lasted because he had never felt satisfied, always left empty and yearning once the spark of a new affection faded away.
But then he’d found an angel and discovered what he’d been searching for all this time did have a name.
It was Sariel.
Seymour dropped, sliding back down the crystal with a grunt. He bolted toward the fight, his chest burning with every step. He saw the broken handle of the paddle he’d had earlier and grabbed it as he ran by. He raised it over his head, running right to the wyrm’s middle section. He aimed the sharp end between the squirming lantern men and then stabbed into the wyrm’s thick flesh with all of his might.
“Seymour!” Sariel called out in warning.
It came too late.
The wyrm’s long body coiled and snapped, hitting Seymour square in the chest. He flew backward, flipping head over heels and landing flat on his face. The paddle rattled as it landed somewhere off in the distance, and Seymour’s head spun from the violent collision. He tried to get up, but he was too disoriented, the agony too great, and he fell right back down.
This wasn’t it.
He wasn’t going to die here.
Everything hurt so much, his mouth was full of blood, but he struggled once more to get up. He had to save Sariel. He had to do this. He was going to change his fate, and he didn’t give a shit what some stupid cards said.
“Seymour!” Day cried as she bounded up to him. She slid under his side to help him, meowing worriedly.
“H-hey… Go help Sariel, lil’ girl.” Seymour didn’t want to lean on Day and fought to stay on his knees. Even breathing hurt like hell right now, and blood dripped into his eye. “Go on! Get!”
