I reached up, hands shaking, searching the mirror cabinet for bandages, alcohol, anything. Bottles clattered as I shoved them aside.
“Selene.” His voice was low, strained.
“I’ve got this,” I insisted, grabbing a bottle of antiseptic. “Just—just stay awake.”
“Selene.” Firmer this time. “Stop.”
I went still and turned back to him.
His eyes were half-lidded, pain turning the blue almost black, but his hand lifted, reaching for me.
“Come here.”
I knelt in front of him, confused, heart pounding against my ribs. “Why won’t you let me treat it?”
“Because I need you to,” he murmured. “Not bandages. Justyou.”
“What? Riven, I?—“
“I need your Light,” his voice no more than a whisper. “Place your hands over the wound.”
Blind panic spiked through me. “I’ll hurt you. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You won’t.” His voice softened, losing its command. “Trust me. You can do this.”
My hands hovered over his skin, shaking. Healing was a Calysteri discipline, capable of patching minor injuries at best. I had spent my entire life believing I was half-blooded, a lie maintained by Eamon until a few weeks ago. My magic burned far hotter than any ordinary bloodline, but my true nature remained a complete mystery. I had no idea how to knit flesh together.
He nudged my hands closer with a faint push of his fingers.
“Reach for your magic,” he rasped. “Deep down. Where it burns brightest.”
I swallowed hard. The metallic smell of blood filled my nose.
“I don’t know how.”
“You do.” His breath shuddered. “You’ve always known. Just breathe.”
I closed my eyes. And breathed.
I stopped trying to think and started trying to feel. I reached for the heat that lived under my skin—the golden fire I had used to burn the Umbrakynn.
Something shifted deep in my chest, answering a call I didn’t realise I’d been ignoring. The air around us stirred, gentle as a breeze in a sealed room.
My palms warmed. In contrast to the violent flash of the warehouse, a faint, soft glow gathered there.
It touched his skin, and he exhaled, leaning into the warmth.
The wound began to knit. Slowly. I watched the skin knit together, cell by cell, sealing the breach.
I could feel it—not just the healing, but the cost. Energy drained from my chest, siphoned through my arms, leeching reserves I hadn’t built back up since the hospital. A bloodless haemorrhage hollowed out my marrow.
When the glow faded, the bleeding had stopped. The skin was closed. The wound was gone. New, pink flesh had knit together in its place.
I gasped, the room tilting violently to the left. I withdrew my hands back, but my fingers were numb.
He grabbed my wrist before I could retreat fully.
“You did it,” he said, his voice rough with more than pain.
