Page 176 of A Soul to Embrace

What if I can find a healing spell?He let his gaze drift to the tomes and other reading material that had lasted through the test of time. Stone shelves were filled with rotting pages, but there had to besomethinghe could do to aid Zylah.

He knew it was unneeded, as she would heal within a day, but if he could just do something as minor as take away the worst of her pain, then he wanted to. He wanted to help this female any way he could, to try to make up for all his fault in this.

As much as he didn’t wish to cease comforting Zylah, Jabez gingerly moved her skull from his lap. He teleported to the platform above and grabbed his shirt, folding it as he materialised back to her. He knelt beside her head and cushioned it while letting her have his scent if she needed it.

Then he turned to what remained of the library and began his search.

Damnit!Jabez’s mind roared, and the urge to throw the rotten book he held across the room was nigh overwhelming.There’s nothing here!

Nothing left he could use.

This part of the library, this hidden away section, held collections of past histories that mattered naught. They held pointless secrets, taboo spells, and ancient words not even he could read. There was nothing here on healing, and the only thing he’d managed to learn was how to put her to sleep and wake her up once he did.

A plethora of books were scattered across the ground while empty, dust-covered shelves surrounded him. Jabez had flicked through everything that didn’t crumble apart under his touch, and not a single scroll or page was useful for what heneededright now.

After he’d fully healed until not even a scar marred his face, back, or arm, he’d gone outside of this secret room and to the library above. Searching that area was impossible. There was a tribe of winged Demons who had made the sheltered librarytheir home. He wouldn’t have been able to fight them off while searching for the scraps of books that remained, no matter how hard he tried.

They’d been quick to instigate a fight, many of them hungry, many of them having children they wished to feed. They’d had no interest in speaking with him; he was an outsider, a wingless one at that.

They saw him as an easy target, without knowing just howwrongthey were about that.

It meant he couldn’t search that level, although it was likely most of the knowledge up there had been destroyed by weather, time, and Demons ruffling through its decaying mess.

He carelessly dropped the last book he had access to, hearing it thump against the ground as he covered his face with both hands.I’m going fucking insane.He’d been searching for hours, hope sparking when he thought he may have found something to help heal her, only for it to wither away when he made it to the last page.

His eyes landed on Zylah, who lay peacefully asleep under the spell he placed over her. Her whines had ceased, her mind too far receded to register anything. He could have screamed, or the world could have been struck with an earthquake, and neither would have woken her.

A growl bubbled from him as his hands clenched into tight fists.Why isn’t she healing?!

When it’d felt like time had just been moving far, far too slowly, he’d teleported to the peak of this mountain. Otholla, although still bright, had moved from the northern horizon to the south.

Although Nyl’theria had quadruple the number of days and they were each three to four times longer than those of Earth, he could feel the stretch of time. If his estimations were correct, and the many hours he’d spent mindlessly reading garbage indicatedanything, an Earth day had surely passed. No, he was absolutelycertainof it.

So, why did this female continue to lie there, wounded?

Giving up on his useless search, he walked over to Zylah and sat next to her. He hoisted her torso onto his lap, and the tremors in his hands were worse than they’d ever been as he patted an uninjured section of her side.

“Why aren’t you healing, Zylah?” he asked her limp body, hating that he’d forced her silence just to spare her pain.

The sickly twists in his gut had transformed into pure anxiety. Every beat of his heart felt like it was pushing barbed venom into his veins, while sand seemed to clog up his lungs.

“Fuck. Just heal for me,” he whispered, burying the side of his face against her neck.

He took in her jasmine-and-violet scent, despising that it was saturated in the metallic tang of blood. He shivered against the coolness in her body that shouldn’t be present.

She should be warm and full of life. She should be chittering and giggling, with her orbs flaring reddish pink in embarrassment at his damn teasing. Her tail should wiggle in joy that they were in a library, constantly drawing his eye to it until his face heated in want, rather than her lying limp like this.

The cute bookworm would havelovedthis fucking place, and instead she was too injured to enjoy it.

Is it Nyl’theria?Did bringing her here stop her natural abilities?Did the Demons discover some kind of poison that stops someone from regenerating?

No, that answer seemed too unlikely.

Shit. What do I do?

He nuzzled her soft fur with his nose and lips before sliding his head forward until he was able to glare at nothing. Tiredness made his vision blur and his mind was grainy, but he tried tothink of a solution. If he couldn’t heal her, then who the hell could?

He groaned as he buried his face against her once more, wishing the answer would come to him as the hook of regret sunk deeper into his heart.

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