They descended hard.
Anya swung cold stone with a grunt, Corven's limp body thudding down beside her. Stale, icy wind from the catacombs caressed her skin like breath from a dead deity.
She coughed, sat up, and opened her eyes through the darkness.
Ell'shivar.
City of tombs.
They'd succeeded.
Ghost lights cast a faint, ghostly glow above great arches carved of fossil bone and obsidian. The entire city below the Dominion thrummed weakly with old, forgotten sorcery—unmapped, forbidden, interred.
Corven wasn't moving.
Anya crawled to him.
"Corven—stay with me, hey." Her voice shook as she reached out to touch his chest, longing for warmth, breath, life.
Nothing.
His pulse was thready. The wounds he'd taken—slashes across his chest, down his back, deep cuts on his legs—they'd all torn open in the veilshift. He was dying.
"No," she whispered. "Not like this."
She placed her hands over the worst wound, blood seeping through her fingers.
"Don't you even die, Arkael. Not after all of this."
Her dragon churned within her. Let me have him. I can pull the fire back. I can scorch out the death.
"No," she breathed out loud. "We do not burn him."
Suddenly—there was a shift in the atmosphere.
A gentle warm wind—in this frozen mausoleum—passed over her.
And a low, womanly voice whispered softly through the room.
"Step back, little flame."
Anyu turned around, appalled.
A woman shoved from the shadows between graves. Gray as ash, robes wrapped around her, hood up, long braids of silver falling to her hips. She moved like smoke, unseen and quiet.
Her weathered, lovely face—cheekbones skeletal, lips full, eyes the same burnished bronze color as Corven's.
Anya gasped for breath. "Who is she?"
The woman said nothing.
She knelt beside Corven, fingers crossed over his wounds. The pendant on her neck—a sunstone, carved—glowed softly, pulsing in time with Corven's dwindling heart.
Golden light flowed out of her fingertips and into his chest, infiltrating his skin.
Anya could feel it—not like her fire, but more substantial, deeper. Like life rewritten.
Healing.
Actual healing.
She didn't even try to speak again. She just watched.
The light pulsed harder, and then—fizzled out.
Corven flinched.
His eyes flickered open.
The woman touched his forehead gently. "Rest. You won't recall me. Not yet."
She rose, then, and turned toward Anya.
"You will protect him. Do you understand, daughter of Nytherin?"
Anya's throat tightened. "Who are you?"
A faint smile twitched upon the woman's lips. "Do not speak of this. Not even to him."
And with that—she vanished into darkness.
And was gone.
No light. No noise. Just. gone.
Corven rolled behind her, sleepily. "Where… are we?"
Anya turned to him, dropping to her knees hastily. His chest—unharmed. The wounds had disappeared. Not even a scar.
"You're okay," she breathed. "You really are okay."
He blinked at her,