CHAPTER 51
Esmyra
Jenli turned to Esmyra, her tone softening only slightly. “Now that this seems to be settled, I need you on that table.”
Esmyra nodded once, jaw clenched.
Draevyn caught her wrist as she moved to obey. “You die on me now, and I’ll follow you straight into the abyss to drag your ass back.”
Her stare met his, and there was something fragile flickering within his fire. “I know,” she whispered.
Esmyra slowly stepped toward the table as Jenli grabbed a quilt and pillow from her bed and threw it over the hard wood. She heard Jak murmur something about keeping watch by the door, his boots scuffing as he turned away to give her privacy.
She dropped her shirt to the floor, leaning into Draevyn’s warmth as he helped guide her gently onto the makeshift bed, wincing as the corrupted magic burned within her.
Draevyn was silent, but the storm behind his eyes said everything. There was grief, rage, and she sensed that same hint of terror that hadn’t seemed to have left either of them.
If this worked, it wouldn’t just be his blood that saved her. It would be his love. And love was something neither of them gave freely, but it kept them both crawling back to one another as if it were the only thing keeping them alive.
Esmyra had never craved anyone the way she did him. And if she survived this, she would never again let him go. Draevyn was the flames of her wildfire, and she would bring hell upon the fates if they ever tried to tear them apart again.
She swallowed hard, reaching for his hand as she laid back against the quilted fabric. Draevyn helped guide her down like she was something precious.
Even now, when she felt like a sinking ship dragging him down with her, he still chose her.
Esmyra lay flat on her stomach, cheek pressed to the pillow as her heart thundered beneath her.
Draevyn kneeled beside the table, his warm hand brushing a strand of hair from her face. “You’re not alone in this. Not with me here.”
His lips grazed the shell of her ear, and her eyes burned as she choked back her emotions.
Then Jenli’s voice cut through the silence. “I feel as though I should warn you that this will hurt,” she said. “Possibly more painful than anything you’ve felt before.”
Esmyra held back her snort. The truth was, she didn’t think anything physical could possibly hurt as terribly as all her heart had endured.
She swallowed, lifted her chin slightly, and exhaled. “I can take it.”
“That’s my girl,” Draevyn whispered, and it brought a subtle smile to her lips.
Jenli’s footsteps padded softly around the table, her presence suddenly feeling impossibly heavy. Esmyra could feel Draevyn’s hand still at her temple, a silent promise that he wasn’t going anywhere. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on that instead of the nausea pooling in her belly.
“Hold still,” Jenli murmured. “I need to find exactly where it is.”
Esmyra flinched at the first touch of fingertips along her spine, and a bead of sweat rolled down her forehead as the room suddenly became impossibly small.
But when Jenli’s fingers reached the space between her shoulder blades, the pressure shifted. She pressed lightly, just above the center of it all, and a pain unlike anything Esmyra had ever known exploded through her.
A strangled scream tore from her throat before she could stop it. White-hot agony pulsed down her limbs, ripping through her nerves like molten glass. Her legs kicked involuntarily, and her fingers clawed into the quilt beneath her.
Draevyn’s hand flew to hers instantly, gripping tight.
“I’m here,” he breathed, cupping her cheek as he pressed his forehead to hers. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, baby.”
She couldn’t answer him. She couldn’t even breathe.
The pain was more than physical. It felt like the shards were tangled in her very soul, refusing to let her go.
“Jenli, what the fuck are you doing to her?!” Jak bellowed from the door, horror evident in his voice.
Jenli stepped back, her face grim as she looked down at Esmyra. “I’ll need to cut carefully… through the flesh above the spine.”
Esmyra forced her jaw to unclench, teeth aching from the tension, though she barely registered it. Her entire body was trembling, drenched in sweat, but she nodded once, weakly. “Do it,” she rasped.
“Brace yourself,” Jenli warned. “You cannot move. If I slip…”
Esmyra gave a humorless chuckle and dug her forehead into the pillow. “If you slip, maybe I’ll finally get some damn rest.”
“No one’s slipping,” Draevyn growled as his thumb brushed over her knuckles.
That was what made her truly brace herself. Not Jenli’s warning, not the blade she knew was about to tear through her, but his voice. The crack in it.
Esmyra took one last breath and stilled her body as best she could. “I’m ready.”
No, she wasn’t. She absolutely fucking wasn’t.
Jenli exhaled from behind her, and then came the cool kiss of steel against Esmyra’s skin. The blade barely broke the surface when it hit her. Agony. Not pain—absolute fucking agony.
It ripped through her in a tidal wave so fierce that a scream erupted from her lips like a wounded animal. The sound startled even her. It was raw and guttural, echoing through the chamber like a death knell.
Jenli froze instantly, the blade halting mid-slice.
Draevyn jolted beside her.
Jak shouted several curses from across the space.
The room fell into stunned silence, or perhaps she had just gone deaf.
Esmyra trembled violently, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. She felt like she was being torn from the inside out, like her nerves were being flayed as her bones were set ablaze.
“Holy Villaem,” Jenli whispered. “It’s fighting back.”
Draevyn slowly rose to his feet, his movements hesitant as if afraid of what he might see. His hand hovered over her bare back, and for a moment, he just stared.
Esmyra turned her face up to him, struggling to focus. “What is it?”
His jaw clenched, his eyes wide with concern. “They’re…” he swallowed hard, “the markings. They’re moving. They’re…writhing.”
“Writhing?!”
He gave a shallow nod, his eyes going distant. “Like they’re alive. They look like snakes trying to burrow deeper.”
Esmyra shivered despite the heat radiating off her skin. “I-I feel it.”
Her voice broke as another wave of pain rushed through her, and she bit down hard on the pillow to muffle the sob that followed.
Draevyn’s hands were on her face in an instant, brushing damp hair away from her temple.
Jenli stepped back, her brows drawn together as she stared at them. “If the pain is already this unbearable from a single cut,” she muttered, “I don’t know how removal is even possible. The curse has embedded itself too deep.”
Draevyn turned to her, his voice full of desperation. “There has to be something. Something to take the pain away. Or at least… lessen it.”
“Jenli, there must be something you know of,” Jak said from the door, and Esmyra hated that she could tell he was breaking down. “If there’s some weird fucking herb we can find in the woods just say the word. There must be something you know of!”
Jenli didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze drifted toward the shelves of vials and tinctures lining the far wall before moving back to Esmyra. “Pain like this cannot be removed,” she said finally. “Only placed elsewhere.”
“What do you mean placed elsewhere?” Draevyn’s brows pulled in confusion, but the witch was already moving toward the shelves, her fingers skimming glass and labels.
“There’s a potion,” she continued, pulling down a small, curved bottle with dark liquid inside.
“This has rarely been used, and it can be extremely dangerous in its own way. When taken by two people… it links them. Binds them together until it’s flushed from the system.
Any pain one feels, the other absorbs it instead.
It works both ways. Emotional and physical. ”
Esmyra’s eyes flicked to Draevyn, and her stomach twisted.
Fuck no.
Jenli turned, holding out the vial. “If you drink this, you’ll carry her pain as if it were your own.”
“No,” Esmyra rasped, shaking her head weakly against the pillow. “No. Absolutely not. I fucking refuse.”
But Draevyn was already stepping forward, reaching for the bottle without a second thought.
“Please don’t do this!” she cried out. “I can take it.”
“I know you can,” he said, eyes burning into hers. “But I won’t let you.”
Draevyn took the vial from Jenli’s outstretched hand. The liquid inside was thick, an odd red color almost resembling blood with gold flecks that caught in the candlelight. He didn’t even flinch as he uncorked it, tilted his head back, and threw half of it down his throat.
Esmyra’s heart dropped. “Drae, stop—” Her voice cracked as she tried to lift herself, but her body was trembling, and what was left of her strength had evaporated.
He crouched beside her again, eyes fierce with his relentless, stubborn love.
Jenli stepped forward. “The second half must be taken immediately, or it won’t work.”
Esmyra hesitated, her breath shaking as her gaze flicked between the vial in his hand and his face. “I didn’t want you to do this for me,” she whispered.
But Draevyn didn’t speak. He just nodded, gently cradling the back of her head as he lowered the vial to her lips.
“I’ve got you, baby,” he whispered only loud enough for her to hear.
Tears raced down her cheeks as her mouth parted reluctantly. The liquid slid onto her tongue, tasting of crushed herbs and something metallic, like rose petals and roots. It was bitter and earthy, and even though she nearly gagged, she swallowed it all.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, like the slow exhale after a held breath, the agony in her spine began to dull. She let out a gasp of relief, her body sagging slightly into the blanket beneath her.
But that relief was gone as quick as it came once her eyes landed on Draevyn.
His entire body had gone rigid, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles fluttered. A low hiss escaped his lips as he hunched forward slightly, bracing himself with one hand on the table.
Fuck. It’s working. Even with that brief moment of pain easing, she never wanted this. Never wanted him to bear this for her.
And now her soul-searing pain was flowing into the man she loved.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said to Jenli.
Concern coiled in Esmyra’s chest, sharper now than the pain had been. His eyes didn’t leave hers, keeping her calm while he shouldered the weight meant for her.
But something else suddenly bled into her, curling dark and heavy in her ribcage.
It was Draevyn’s pain. Only it wasn’t physical.
It was the raw guilt he carried, creeping in like a slow tide and seeping into her. It was a wound that hadn’t scabbed over, the kind that whispered he should have done more, saved more, been more.
The feeling pressed on her lungs until her breath felt shallow, making her chest ache with a grief she hadn’t lived but now understood as if it were her own.
Esmyra realized then that his pain wasn’t just in his body or mind—it was a constant weight in his soul.