Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
Caring leaves you vulnerable.
LUCA
Everywhere I turn, there’s carnage.
Celine is barely breathing. Riven’s face is streaming blood from every orifice, and the chaos in the courtyard is loud enough to wake the dead.
Her ribbon of light is weak, fluttering sporadically in my chest. It’s still there, though. She’s not gone. I’m clinging to control by the skin of my fangs. If we lose her, my basilisk will turn this whole realm to stone, and I fear I’ll do nothing to stop him.
“Come on, breathe, dammit!” Ciprian’s doing chest compressions on Riven. His black eyes are wild, but he never loses his rhythm or his focus.
“Stay with him,” I mutter.
“Don’t lose her,” Ciprian tosses back, his voice cracking before he pinches Riven’s nose and bends to administer mouth-to-mouth.
Another thirty chest compressions. Another shared puff of air. I watch from the corner of my eye, skin crawling at the sheer volume of blood on Riven’s face. It’s smeared on Ciprian’s chin and cheeks from the CPR, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
He’s too focused on keeping the stubborn veydra alive.
My mouth fills with venom, and my vision takes on a yellow tint. It’s not fully basilisk, and that’s the best I can do while we’re both actively panicking.
“I can’t believe he did that,” Alistair groans. “I was further away, but I would have gotten to her in a few seconds.” Ali and I were trying to keep the mob from knocking over the stone assassins and activating the remaining koil’nashras when Celine called for him.
Riven didn’t hesitate to shift and run to her side, and I can’t blame him. “He knew that, Ali; he was just trying to help.”
“You’re blaming yourself,” Ciprian says. “But if you’d been in his place, we never would have known about your secret healing potion.”
Ali hisses, but there’s no anger behind it.
“I only found the vial this morning. It was in a hidden compartment of my bag that I added years ago in case of emergency. I completely forgot it existed.” He peels back the makeshift bandage we wrapped around the stab wound in Celine’s leg and sighs heavily. “It’s working. Her leg is healing.”
Thank the gods. Needing confirmation for myself, I bend my head and rest my ear on Celine’s chest. Her heartbeat is strong, the unsteady, weak thuds replaced by the robust, determined thumps I can’t live without.
Color returns to her cheeks. Her fingers, which were stiff and curled into claws when we got here, lie relaxed against the floor. “I think she’s out of the woods.”
Ciprian curses around a sob and starts another set of compressions.
“Come on, you crazy bastard. She needs you. Don’t make me fail her.
” He bends, blowing air into Riven’s slack mouth.
His chest inflates artificially, the same as every other time, and I swallow hard.
I don’t want to let him go, but there’s nothing more we can—
Riven lurches forward and vomits blood all over Ciprian.
“Fucking fuck,” Ciprian sputters, supporting Riven’s back as he coughs up more blood. His last wheeze is more bile than anything else, and I shudder. As gross as it is, I think it’s a good sign.
“Are you okay?”
“What a stupid thing to ask him,” Ciprian snaps, raising his shirt to wipe some of the blood off his face. “Does he look okay?”
He looks like he’s manually expelling his liquefied insides, but I don’t think anyone wants to hear that observation out loud.
“Take it easy, Riven. We’ve got you.” Alistair crawls to his side, gently wiping the excess blood from his eyes, nose, and mouth.
Malach bursts into the room, the pocket portal clenched in his hands. “Do I need to go get Sheena? How are they doing?”
“Alive,” I whisper. “They’re both alive.”
Malach sags with relief and tosses the portal to Lyklan before hoisting Celine into his arms. “She’ll recover quicker near the spine. Bring Riven, too.”
With Alistair and Ciprian supporting Riven between them, we follow Malach to the massive door. He uses Celine’s limp finger to unlock it, then leads us all down a winding spiral staircase.
I instinctively recoil from the massive golden column of living magic.
While nothing in the universe could make me leave Celine’s side right now, I can’t help sensing that we aren’t supposed to be here.
Steeling my resolve, I shoot a hard stare at the magic.
We’re a package deal, and if the spine has a problem with that, it’ll have to get over it.