Page 65 of Crown of Storm and Silence
No response. She lies limp against me, her skin pale as parchment, her warmth fading with each passing second.
"I have Banu," Emir says, the small fairy cradled carefully in his arms.
I rise with Nesilhan against my chest, her blood soaking through my shirt as I race toward the basement stairs. Each step sends terror clawing at my throat—her breathing grows shallower, her pulse weaker against my chest.
"Move!" I roar at Emir and Mikail as we burst through the tower's ruins into the night air.
The forest around us feels too close, too confining. My hands shake as I try to gather the power needed for the portal, but panic makes my shadows writhe chaotically. The first attempt fails, reality refusing to bend as my control splinters.
"Kaan," Mikail says urgently. "Focus. She needs?—"
"I KNOW WHAT SHE NEEDS!" The words tear from my throat as I feel another flutter of weakness in her pulse.
I close my eyes, forcing the panic down, channeling every ounce of shadow power I possess. The portal rips open with violent force, tearing a jagged wound between realms that bleeds darkness at the edges.
22
The executioner
Kaan
We plunge through the portal into the Shadow Court's medical wing. My boots skid on polished stone as I stumble, nearly dropping her. The sterile corridors stretch before us, too bright, too clean for the blood covering us both.
"HEALERS!" My voice cracks the crystal fixtures lining the walls. "NOW!"
Robed figures appear from doorways, their faces shifting from curiosity to alarm as they see the blood, smell the death clinging to us. One takes a step back at the sight of me—shadows pouring from my skin, eyes blazing with barely contained madness.
"The private chambers," one says quickly, gesturing down the hall. "This way, my lord."
We reach the private chamber, its walls lined with ancient healing crystals that pulse with soft light. They place her on the obsidian healing slab, its surface warm to the touch and carved with runes that begin glowing the moment her blood touches them.
"By the void," the chief healer breathes as he examines her. "The Obur... they've nearly drained her completely."
The bite marks are everywhere—her throat, her wrists, her inner thighs. Each one weeps sluggishly, her body too drained to bleed properly anymore. Her skin has gone gray-white, lips tinged blue, eyes sunken into dark hollows.
"Moonbell extract," he barks to his assistants. "And bring the shadowroot—quickly!"
They work frantically, grinding herbs that shimmer with otherworldly light, mixing tinctures that smell of starlight and deep earth. One healer presses a vial of luminescent liquid to her lips, but most of it dribbles down her chin—she's too weak to swallow.
"She's not responding," the assistant says, panic creeping into her voice.
"Double the dose," the chief healer commands. "And bring the resurrection stones."
I press my hand to her chest, feeling for the heartbeat I know so well. It's there, but wrong—stuttering, pausing for terrifying seconds before resuming with weak, irregular thumps. Each beat seems weaker than the last.
"The child?" I demand.
He places both hands over her belly, his eyes rolling back as he extends his supernatural senses deep into her womb. The silence stretches like a blade against my throat. When he finally opens his eyes, tears stream down his weathered face.
"The heartbeat is... I can barely find it. Perhaps three, four beats per minute. The child is dying, my lord. The connection to the mother is almost completely severed."
"Then fix it!" I roar, grabbing him by the robes.
"We're trying," he says quietly, not flinching from my grip. "But the Obur venom is fighting everything we do. It's designed to corrupt from within, to poison the very soul."
I release him and watch as they try everything—pressing glowing crystals to her chest that crack and turn black upon contact, pouring silver healing waters that hiss and steam when they touch her skin, chanting in the old tongue as their combined magic tries to force life back into her body.
Nothing works.
