Page 320 of House Ignis

I tried to force magic into the healing runes woven through my leathers, but they barely responded. The wound ran far too deep.

It was going to scar—I could feel the jagged wrongness of it in my marrow.

The darkness began to press in, the edges of my vision fraying, until a sudden explosion of shadow shattered the silence.

"AVA!"

Asher didn't just arrive; he tore the realm apart to get to me. He was a storm of lethal, silver-eyed fury.

The Reapers didn't even try to fight him; they recoiled in absolute terror, hissing as his shadows touched them.

Under his touch, the beasts didn't just die—they dissolved, turning into harmless mist that fled back into the cracks of the stone.

He was on his knees beside me in a heartbeat, his face pale beneath the soot and blood.

"Stay with me, darling. Look at me!" he roared, his hands hovering over the gash. He began chanting, his voice a low, frantic vibration as he tried to force magic into the healing runes woven through my leathers. But the runes wouldn't take. The wound was too deep, too tainted by the Shadow Realm’s magic.

"Fuck!" he snarled, his eyes widening in a rare moment of sheer panic when the healing failed. "Fuck, it’s not closing!"

He stopped the spells, his breath hitching, and immediately pressed his bare hands directly over the wound.

He didn't have any cloth, didn't have anything to bind it—he just used the weight of his palms to try and force the blood to stay inside me. I cried out, my head falling back against the stone as the raw pressure sent a new wave of white-hot pain through my nervous system.

“Hold on, little flame,” Aether’s voice was a booming, desperate command in my mind. “Do not let the dark take you. Stay!”

I coughed, and the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth, spilling over my lips.

My lungs felt like they were collapsing under the crushing pressure of the Shadow Realm.

30... 29... 28...

The timer above the dome was a mocking, blood-red countdown. It was the most agonizing thirty seconds of my life. Every breath was a war, every heartbeat a jagged spike of pain.

"Ava, look at me!" Asher grabbed my face with one blood-slicked hand while keeping the other clamped on my leg, his fingers trembling, his silver eyes burning with a terrifying, apocalyptic light. "Don't you dare close your eyes. You fucking stay with me, do you hear? If you leave, I will take down this whole godsdamn realm. I will drown everything in darkness until there is nothing left.”

I looked into his eyes, and I knew he wasn't kidding. He would tear the stars from the sky if it meant keeping me here.

"I'm... here," I managed to whisper, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.

3... 2... 1...

The warping began, the world stretching and screaming as the transport magic finally reclaimed us.

I felt the familiar, sickening pull, but this time, the darkness was already waiting for me.

My eyes drifted shut, Asher’s desperate face the last thing I saw before the void took me for real.

•••

The warp spit us out into the blinding glare of the Arena’s medical bay. The transition was a violent sensory overload, the absolute silence of the Shadow Realm replaced by the deafening roar of thousands of spectators screaming our names.

I was still cradled in Asher’s arms, my fingers white-knuckled in the fabric of his shirt. He didn't wait for a stretcher; he simply started walking, a blood-stained, soot-covered force of destruction carving a path through the panicked officials and healers.

His jaw was set in a line of pure iron, his silver eyes fixed on the white tents ahead.

Through the bond, it was a secondary war.

Aether’s panic was a rhythmic, golden thrum of distress, his mental voice a jagged snarl. “Hold on, little flame. Stay. Do not fade!”