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My father’s face hovers above me, red, with bulging veins. His knife glimmers silver.

“You bitch.” He raises his blade. “I’ll kill you, just like I killed your mother.”

Fear floods every inch of me, so intense I cannot orient myself. I cannot find myself. There is only terror.

The knife comes down—

A shadow engulfs us. My father flies upward, five thick green fingers wrapped around his neck. His feet dangle above the ground. The utter rage on Azmar’s face makes him nearly unrecognizable.

But before Azmar can crush my father’s windpipe, before I can pick myself off the ground, I see him. The soldier who restrained me, bleeding from his arm. Coming up from behind.

I don’t even have a chance to scream.

The soldier’s sword comes up, then down, slashing across Azmar’s back. Azmar wears only a tunic. He wasn’t given armor. Qequan wanted him dead.

Blue blood rains over the ground.

“No!”I scream, launching to my feet.“No!”

The soldier stumbles with his own injuries.

Azmar releases my father and drops to his knees.

I don’t know if it’s my ability or their own fear that seizes them, but they run. My father and the soldier. They flee for their lives.

Azmar’s palms hit the ground. His breaths come hard. Sweat drips from his nose.

Tears blur my vision as I rush to him. Indigo soaks his shirt. The cut is bad. Very bad. Bandages alone will do nothing to help him.

“Oh stars, oh gods.” My hands shake. What do I do?

Azmar’s elbow buckles and he falls onto his side. Falls, just like the star did last night.

Tears rush down my cheeks. I move in front of him, cradling his face. “Azmar? Azmar.”

He lifts a trembling arm. Touches my hair. “Lark.”

The sound of my name rips a sob from my chest. I pull off my shirt and crumple it in my hands. Hurry around him to press it into his wound. My breaths rip up and down my throat.

I rush to a fallen soldier and search his pockets and satchels. No medical kit. Nothing useful. But the belt, that might help. I unclasp it and pull it from his pants. Do the same to the next soldier before sprinting back to Azmar’s side.

He’s bleeding so much. It’s already soaked my shirt.

“Hold on,” I plead, threading the first belt around him, then the second, using them to put pressure on the wound and keep the wadded shirt in place. “Hold on, Azmar, please.”

I check his clothing. His pockets are empty, except for one in his shirt. I reach in to pull out a stone. A dark stone with a faint blue shimmer.

Time stops.

Azmar took only two things to the battlefield. The sword allotted him, and my bloodstone.

Tears drip from my chin onto the dust.

Azmar’s breaths grow weaker.

“No,” I whisper. Plead. “No, no.” I kiss his lips, and his eyes find mine. Their light still burns, but not for long. He will not survive without medical attention.

The sound of battle continues beyond the basin, yet has grown quieter. Is the end so near?