Dark. Heavy. Real.
It soaks into the seams of the crystalline wall.
And the crystal…reacts.
Ithisses.
A fissure forms where his blood touches. A web of cracks races outward, shimmering with heat. The spore-veins writhe in confusion.
I feel it—the song faltering.
I crawl forward on shaking limbs.
My hand touches the blood.
Andclarityslams back into me like a tidal wave.
The songdies.
Just for me.
Like a radio switched off in my skull.
I breathe—really breathe—for the first time in hours.
And Iremember everything.
He’s still pressing against the barrier, teeth bared in pain, body twitching under the current.
I throw myself forward, palm smearing more of his blood across the wall.
The cracks widen.
The song wails in protest.
And then?—
The crystalmelts.
It collapses into ash and smoke, the structure failing all at once. I fall through it into his arms. His body is shaking, skin blistered, breath ragged. But hecatchesme.
“Jillian,” he rasps.
And I know—no matter what comes next—I’m not alone.
Not anymore.
CHAPTER 36
MAUG
Ciampa runs.
Or what passes for running now.
What’s left of him peels away from the shattered chamber in a spray of crystal dust and drifting spores, his feet slapping wet against the floor, gait uneven—lurching like a corpse dragged upright by habit instead of will. The crystalline growths have eaten into his joints, fused his jaw half-open, split his throat into something that no longer understands how to swallow or scream.
But I can smell it.
