Page 52 of Stormvein

“Ellie’s right. We can’t take the risk.” Mira’s voice is tight. “Not after what it took to rescue him.”

I know what she isn’t saying. We lost two fighters during the rescue. Two more lives given to the Authority, sacrificed for a man so he can die free.

“Then what?” Lysa’s composure finally cracks. “We stay here and watch him die while we all slowly starve? Is that the plan?”

Mira doesn’t answer that. She doesn’t need to. Her silence says everything. There is no plan, just a slow crawl toward loss.

I watch Sacha’s chest rise and fall in shallow, uneven movements. Each breath sounds wet, ragged. Death rattles, although no one will say it out loud.

The mist stalker shifts in the corner, standing and turning in a circle before sitting down again. Since its first appearance at River Crossing, it’s stayed close to me. I’m sure its presence makes the others nervous, but I find a strange comfort in it.

Mira wrings out a fresh cloth, and then uses it to gently clean the gaping wound in his side. “I think all we can do now is try to keep his temperature down, and make sure he’s as comfortable as can be.”

I press my lips together, swallowing the words of denial that want to burst out, and focus instead on cleaning his wrists where the restraints have destroyed his skin. After a few minutes, Mira and Lysa stand, leaving me alone. I can hear them talking to Varam outside, their voices carrying softly on the night air—quiet, urgent, concerned with our survival more than Sacha’s. They’re preparing for what comes next. After he dies.

I shake my head. “You don’t get to die,” I whisper. “Not here. Not like this.”

My fingers stroke over the back of one hand, careful not to hurt him. The strange metal restraints give off an odd glow every time my hand moves close to them. We’ve tried everything to remove them. Knives, rocks, brute strength, but nothing works, and eventually we had to stop for fear of damaging his hands further. Whatever they are, whatever they’re doing to him, we can’t get them off.

His skin burns against mine, the fever raging higher than ever before. Sweat soaks the makeshift bedding beneath him, yet his body shakes with chills. The conflicting symptoms make no sense.

I lay my palm against his chest, between the burns and cuts, checking his heartbeat. It flutters erratically beneath broken ribs. Too fast, then too slow. Struggling, and failing. The magic inside me brightens in response, flowing down my arm toward him, then stopping abruptly, as though it’s hitting an invisible barrier.

“Fight,” I tell him. “Please, fight. They don’t get to win. Not like this.”

His only response is another rattling breath, shallower than the last.

When Lysa returns, her expression tells me everything before she speaks. She’s seen someone close to death before. She knows the signs.

“The fever is burning him from the inside. His body temperature is dropping at the same time. This is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means his body is failing.” Her voice is gentle. “Organ by organ, everything is shutting down.”

My vision blurs, the cave walls swimming around me. This can’t be happening. Not after everything we went through to rescue him. Not when we were so close.

“There must be something?—”

“I’ve tried everything there is, Ellie.” The defeat in her voice can’t be ignored. “Weallhave. But sometimes, there is too much damage. You should say your goodbyes.”

She leaves me with instructions to keep him comfortable, words that mean they’ve given up, and now we’re just helping him die.

Make his passing easier. Accept the inevitable.

But I can’t. Iwon’t.

I continue wiping down his skin with cold water—his face, his chest, his arms. I try to get fluids between his cracked lips, butmost of it runs down his chin. I whisper to him constantly. About the tower, about his escape, about how it felt the first time he spoke my name. About the future he has to live to see.

Nothingreaches him.

His breathing becomes more ragged. His skin shifts from burning hot to deathly cold within seconds, as if his body can no longer regulate itself. The wounds that cover every inch of him begin to weep fresh blood as his condition deteriorates.

The mist stalker moves closer, its eyes on Sacha. When it nudges my arm with surprising gentleness, I push it away, annoyed by the intrusion. It does it again, thrusting its muzzle against my chest and making a sound between a growl and a purr.

That’s when I realize what it’s touching.

The ring.Sacha’sring. I’ve kept it hidden since I found it, afraid to mention it to the others, afraid they might take it from me—this last, tangible part of him. My fingers are shaking when I pull it free, the black stone appearing to absorb all the light around it. I’d almost forgotten about it in my fear at seeing the state he was in. This piece of him that somehow came to me when he fell, when everyone thought he was dead.