5
The woman did not hesitate. She pressed her hand against Justin’s chest, fingers splayed wide, and the air in the room twisted sharp and sudden, as if the walls themselves recoiled from her touch.
Eliane flinched, a cold weight settling in her gut. She forced herself to hold still, watching as Justin jolted under the stranger’s hand. He spasmed once more, limbs jerking uncontrollably, then slumped against the mattress, trembling under forces she could neither see nor understand.
His breath rasped in his throat, shallow and broken. After a moment, the violent shuddering began to slow, each tremor smaller and weaker, until he lay trembling in place. His head rolled to the side, sweat and blood matting his hair against the pillow.
Without pause, the man stepped forward. He hovered his hand above Justin’s chest, then drove it downward—not striking him, but sending out a crackling pulse that made the air snap.
The air shifted, dense and oppressive, pressing down around the bed. Justin’s body arched weakly, sweat running down in sheets. His burning skin began to cool, the angry flush draining slowly from his face. His breath hitched once, shallow and broken, then steadied by degrees.
Eliane caught her breath, relief hitting her so hard it almost hurt. For months, no healer had been able to touch the fever—and now, before her eyes, it was breaking.
The woman moved next, a flick of her hand weaving another spell. Whatever she summoned settled heavily over Justin’s broken form—a deep, smothering weight that pushed the last of his struggling into stillness.
His body sagged further into the bedding, the last of the tremors fading from his limbs. His breathing, frantic moments ago, slowed unevenly, still catching rough in his chest. His fingers twitched faintly against the sheets before falling still.
The two strangers moved quickly, checking the amulet at Justin’s chest with brisk, impersonal efficiency. Their hands hovered briefly over him, searching, judging, before drawing back again in silent agreement.
Eliane dared to inch closer. She didn’t understand what had been done—only what she could see now with her own eyes. Justin’s breathing had evened, rough but steady. His skin, once burning to the touch, had cooled. The torn side of his face was still swollen and raw where the claw marks had split deep, his body battered and thin—but he looked steadier now than he had in months.
When they turned to leave, the man paused first, flicking a glance at the amulet resting against Justin’s chest. Its pulse had softened and grown steady.
“The amulet stays with him. Remove it, and you doom them both.”
Eliane stiffened, the words sinking deeper than any threat. She forced her voice out, cracked and low. “Who are you?”
The woman glanced back at her, voice flat. “We are not your enemies. That is all you need to know tonight.”
The man, colder, barely slowed his steps. “He lives for now. Be content with that.”
The woman added, softer but without warmth, “If you wish him to survive beyond tomorrow, meet us at first light by the outer wall. Come alone.”
They slipped into the corridor without another word, leaving only the heavy silence behind.
Eliane crossed back to Justin’s side, sinking into the chair she had not left for hours. She rested her hand against his arm, feeling the faint lift and fall of his breath beneath her fingers. His face, slack with exhaustion, bore no sign of the pain that had once etched itself deep into every line.
The fever had broken.
Tonight, she would not leave him.
Mud pressed against his face, seeping into the open wounds clawed across his skin.
His right hand scraped at the ground, groping for a sword that was no longer there.
The dead weight of his armor dragged him deeper into the filth with every shallow breath.
His right leg lay twisted beneath him, shattered where it had buckled mid-flight.
Blood sheeted over his right eye, sealing half the world in darkness.
When he forced his head up, the world tilted, blurred under a haze of red.
Heat pulsed above him, beating like a second heart.
A smear of flame tore across the edge of his vision, too fast, too bright.
The ground trembled under heavy steps he couldn’t see.
Light flared through the blood in his eye, shattering into a thousand burning stars.
The air quivered, sharp as broken glass.
He pressed harder into the dirt, but the ground swallowed him back down.
He would not fall to them. Not to beasts. Not to the monsters he was sworn to destroy.
The mist still clung to the stones of the outer wall when Eliane found them. Two figures waited where the city bled into open land, well away from the main roads and hidden beyond the reach of patrolling eyes. Their cloaks dulled their outlines, letting them blur into the gray, part of the drifting mist rather than intruders upon it.
“The fever came back,” Eliane said, breaking the silence first. Her voice was steady—barely. “Not like before. Not burning. But it returned.”
She stepped closer, boots scraping grit across the stone. “I don’t know what you did last night, and I don’t care who or what you are.” Her eyes narrowed, cold as drawn steel. “I only care about him. What price must be paid for his life?”
For a long moment, neither figure answered. The taller one—the one with the harsher aura, the colder presence—folded his arms across his chest, the gesture casual but unreadable. The other, the woman with a face half-shadowed by her hood, tilted her head as if weighing Eliane like a piece of grain in the scales.
“You ask the right questions,” the woman finally said, voice calm, composed. “But you will not like the answers.”
“I don’t care if I like them,” Eliane snapped. “I need them.”
The two figures stood motionless, unhurried by her desperation. It was the woman who finally answered, her voice cool, stripped of any pretense of comfort.
“There is someone bound within the boy’s keeping,” the woman said. “Someone we would see freed.”
Eliane stiffened, confusion cutting through the growing dread like a blade. “Bound?” she echoed. “What do you mean?”
The man spoke this time, his voice low. “Not by chains. By choice. A soul tied to his own.”
A pulse beat hard at Eliane’s temple. She struggled to pull sense from their words, each syllable sinking heavier than the last. “Why?” she asked. “Is it the soul that’s killing him?”
The man shook his head, “The soul bound to him is the only reason he’s still breathing.”
The woman added. “He is dying from the curse that marked him. That wound runs deep—into the spirit, not the flesh. That is why none of his wounds have closed. Why no treatment holds.”
Eliane stared, her throat tight. “If it’s the only thing keeping him alive... then why should I let you take it from him?”
“Because he keeps seeking her in dreams,” the woman said. “Too often. Too long. It’s wearing his body down—and if he slips too far, she goes with him.”
The man gave a short nod. “We broke the dreaming—nothing more. He cannot keep chasing her that way. It would have killed them both.”
Her mind, reaching for anything solid, seized the one name she knew.
“Is this... Castella?” she asked, the name rough on her tongue, torn from too many nights of hearing it whispered in fevered dreams.
Neither answered right away. The mist stirred between them, curling around their feet. Then the woman inclined her head, slowly. “You know her name,” she said.
Eliane’s hands clenched at her sides. “He calls for her,” she said. “Over and over. But when he wakes, he does not remember.”
The man’s arms folded beneath his cloak, a silent, grim gesture.
“It would be so,” the woman said. “Some things are kept only in dreams.”
Eliane pressed forward, heat rising behind her ribs. “And Justin?” she demanded. “What happens to him if you tear her free?”
The woman met her gaze without wavering. “He will lose her,” she said simply. “All memory of her. All trace.”
Eliane felt the words strike deeper than she had braced for, the weight of them sinking cold into her chest.
“But he will live,” the man said. “Once the curse is lifted, once his soul is made whole again, he can be healed. Our healers will see to it.”
The woman added, quieter but firm, “You asked what price must be paid for his life—and this is what we offer. To lift the curse, she must be freed.”
Eliane stared at them, and for a moment, her mind offered up the image she hated most: Justin lying broken under the weight of fever, and still—somehow—smiling. A soft, distant thing, untouched by the ruin of his body. As if he had already found something beyond their reach, something he would not give up even if the world demanded it.
Her throat burned.
“And if he will not let her go?” she asked.
The woman did not blink. “Then he dies. And she with him.”
Eliane said nothing. The mist pressed close, clinging to her skin, to the weight gathering in her chest.
The woman spoke first, steady and sure. “The ritual cannot be done here. The place where she was bound, the land where it must be undone—they are tied. It is not a thing that can be moved at will.”
“You mean to take him,” Eliane said, her voice sharper than she intended.
“We must,” the man answered. “Without him, there can be no severance.”
Eliane’s fists tightened. “He can barely lift his head,” she said. “You expect him to survive a journey?”
The woman shook her head once. “Not as he is. He will need care before he can be moved. Time, and steady hands.”
Eliane drew in a slow breath, forcing herself to think past the cold pounding behind her eyes. “How?” she said. “No healer I know can touch a dragon’s curse.”
The man’s mouth curled, not in mockery, but in something colder—a truth he had no need to soften. “Because we are not like your healers,” he said. “And this sickness was never meant to be undone by human hands.”
Eliane stared at them, heart hammering in her chest. “You are not human.”
The man’s gaze sharpened beneath the hood, a faint edge slipping into his voice. “You said you did not care who—or what—we are.”
Eliane lifted her chin, the weight of her fear burning into something harder, steadier. “I did not,” she said. “But you ask me to give him over. I need to know who I am entrusting him to.”
The two figures exchanged a glance, something quiet and guarded passing between them.
The man spoke first, his voice low. “You would trust the girl with this?”
The woman’s answer was firm. “If it is what it takes to save her, then yes.”
And before Eliane could speak, the woman stepped forward, unfastening the clasp at her throat with a single smooth motion. Her cloak slid from her shoulders and settled at her feet.
The change came without noise, without ceremony.
Her body stretched and flowed, the shape of her blurring—flesh hardening, limbs pulling close, spine arching into a long, coiled line.
In the space of a breath, a dragon stood before Eliane.
Not the towering monsters told of in old war stories—but something sleeker, stranger. The creature’s body was long and serpent-like, all smooth coils and narrow strength, built for speed rather than brute force.
Red scales caught the misting light like molten stone, and along her spine, faint threads of gold shimmered and faded like embers caught on a dying wind.
The dragon lifted her head slightly, slitted eyes bright and watchful, the slow curl of her tail stirring the mist at her feet.
Eliane could not move. She barely remembered to breathe.
And then the dragon shimmered again, the body folding back inward—long limbs returning, scales receding into skin—until the woman stood once more, gathering her cloak back around her shoulders as if nothing had changed.
“We are of the Ruby blood,” she said. “And we have walked hidden among you longer than your oldest songs remember.”