Page 158 of Esperance

She flinched.

Another pull.

Her shoulders jerked.

His breaths came a little stronger now. His vision slowly cleared. The pain was no longer a roaring flame, but a smoldering burn.

“What’s happening?” he rasped. “What are you doing?”

Amryn didn’t answer, but that strange tug happened again. The hand on his abdomen trembled, and her grip on his fingers turned strangling. But a little more of the burning in his gut dimmed.

He didn’t understand what was happening, but Amryn . . .

Somehow, she was taking the poison from him.

And it was killing her.

Chapter 41

Amryn

“Stop,” Carver gasped. “Amryn,stop.”

She could barely hear him.

She didn’t know if she was going to survive this. Empaths couldn’t heal themselves, but he’d given her the antidote, so there was a chance they could both survive this.

Unless healing the damage inside of Carver would take too much of her energy, and by trying to heal him, she was only dooming herself.

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let him die.

Jayveh, Argent, and everyone else . . . there was nothing she could do to help them. But Carver was with her. She could make sure he lived.

From the corner of her eye, she saw her mother’s prayer coin, discarded by the amulet. Seeing the coin gave her a measure of peace. If her mother’s religion was right, she would soon be with her again.

Carver wasn’t shaking as much, his pain no longer all-consuming. But he was still weak as she fought to heal him.

He was fighting, too. He released her hand, only so he could lay it over hers, which was pressed against his ridged stomach. She didn’t need to touch the actual wound in order to heal someone, but touching as close to the damaged area as possible helped her focus her efforts.

Carver tried to pry her hand away, but he was too weak. “Amryn,” he cracked out, his voice breaking.

Saints, she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to leave him.

She didn’t stop dragging the poison out of him, and into herself. She could feel her energy draining. Her empathic gift was burning through the poison, but it was killing her.

Wanting the comfort of her mother’s coin, she reached out with her free hand. Her outstretched fingertips grasped the pendant of the necklace by mistake, and the black gemstone flared, changing to a blinding crimson.

The amuletwoke up.There was no other way to describe it. The muted hum that had always been there became a roar. Power—hot and pure—rushed up her hand and settled in her chest.

She didn’t understand it, but she didn’t question it.

She embraced it.

She clutched the pendant in her palm, and shetook. From the glowing gemstone, and the poison inside Carver. She dragged the poison out of him, and the wrenching she felt in her own stomach wasn’t as painful as it had been a second ago.

It wasn’t only her body that felt stronger. It wasn’t even just her healing ability. It waseverything.

She could feel everyone in the library with a precision she’d never experienced before. She could perfectly read Jayveh—who was indeed dying. And that small baby inside her was almost gone. Both fought desperately to survive, but they would fail.