His gaze pinned me, deep-set, willing me to understand.
To accept.
But I could not.
Not when my life essence trickled into the glass vial clenched in his hand.
“Wh-what are you doing?”My voice shook, laced with raw alarm.
His dark eyes met mine, unshaken by my panic, his expression unreadable.
And then, with an infuriating calm that only deepened the terror in my chest, he said?—
“I’m taking your blood to protect you.”
His words were soft, assured.
But they did nothing to quell the storm rising inside me.
“Protect me?From what?”
My breaths came fast, shallow, desperate.
A battle I was already losing.
“Shh,” he murmured, his voice a whisper of smoke and shadow.
He swiped his palm before my face, slow, purposeful.
My eyes fought to stay open.
And then—his blood.
Still warm, still slick with something unholy, he dragged it across my forehead in a single, binding stroke.
“I bind the soul to this new life by my blood and shadow’s might.
“Rise, be born anew, and walk the path once more.”
The words slithered through me, coiling around my bones, sinking into the marrow.
I exhaled a long, shuddering sigh.
A lull pulled at me, a sweet oblivion, an enchanted embrace whispering surrender.
No.
Don’t succumb.
I clawed my way back, forcing myself to hold on, to fight.
“Where’s Amir?”
The question ripped from my lips before I could stop it, the urgency of a living, breathing thing inside me.
“What happened to him?”
There was a pause—too long, too heavy.
