And it…holds.
My breathing is heavy. Almost gasping. Beside me, Eres murmurs. “More antidote. I can’t overdose you.”
I take the offered dose, Eres tipping it in without me opening my eyes. I can’t lose concentration, or I’ll lose it all.
A spine is not just bone. The spinal cord is only the beginning. Extending my luminth into the severed cord, I feel the frayedends against my consciousness like broken rope fibers and attempt to coax them together, to weave as I would if I was crafting a weapon between my hands.
Except it’s not like shaping a weapon. It’s like trying to braid air. The nerves twitch away from the light as if they’re afraid of it.
I breathe. Try again, softer this time. And my luminth threads into the cord, wrapping gently and connecting ragged ends, drawing together. I shape it carefully into fine strands, thinner than hair, each one a bridge to the one beside it. It takes every piece of concentration I have to keep the pattern from collapsing.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours. The voices around me ebb and flow. Eres, giving instructions. Darian, pacing around the room. Kaelen snapping something at Valcor. Elspeth, whispering Sera’s name over and over again.
I don’t lift my head.I can’t.But I’m so tired. My nose itches and warms. I feel damp against my face. “Lyra, your nose.”
I shake my head, not speaking. At some point, Eres slides a cloth gently under my nose without interrupting my hands. I feel it soak the material, warm and wet and iron against my face.
Blood.
My vision swims. I blink hard, forcing focus.
“Lyra,” Eres murmurs close to my ear, voice strained. “The bleeding is getting worse.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper.
“You’re not.” Kaelen sounds tense, somewhere behind me. When my legs buckle, I feel him slide into place, holding me up. “Can you pause?”
“No.” I rasp. Eventually, I finish the nerve bridge. The moment it locks into place—when that last, carefully constructed strand connects, I feel something shift in Sera’s body. Her breath deepens, just slightly. Her heartbeat steadies under Eres’s fingers when he checks her pulse.
Relief hits so hard my knees almost buckle. But we’re not done. The blade wound still gapes. If her spine is whole but the rest of her body fails, it was for nothing. Shifting my focus to her abdomen, I shift luminth into the torn tissue, attempting to shape it like a seal. I move slightly faster now, a little more confident. Closing vessels, encouraging clotting, knitting muscle fibers together.
It’s definitely hours now, but Kaelen doesn’t move from behind me.
My arms burn. My hands cramp, head throbbing. The luminth begins to feel as though it’s being dragged through me from some deeper well, and that well is beginning to scrapeempty.
“More antidote,” I rasp suddenly. Panic rises in my chest as my luminth flickers. I’m so close.She’sso close. “Please. Quickly.”
Eres is already moving. He presses the vial to my lips again, tipping it up. His breath catches. “That's all of it.”
Barely a third of what I had before. “It'll be enough.”
A hand runs over my hair. “Your nose is bleeding again.”
At the gruff words, I feel myself lean a little more into him, before I steady myself and carry on.
Sera’s breathing deepens. And finally, I open my eyes.
Her skin color has shifted from gray-tinged pallor to something closer to pink. Sweat still beads on her temples, but her breathing has steadied. My hands shake as I finish the last of the sealing along Sera’s wound. “I think this is it.”
Nobody says anything.
The words burn my throat. “I’m going to stop now.”
The sudden absence of luminth is like falling. I sway, dizziness slamming into me. My stomach lurches. And my nose bleeds harder, a warm, steady flow.
There’s a lot of noise.
Kaelen catches me by the shoulders before I can fold in on myself. “Witch,” he says urgently. “Lyra. Breathe.”
