Page 161 of The First Scar
Everyone turned.
Eryndor was on his knees, one hand braced against the stone, the other clutching his wound. In the monochrome world, the blood soaking his armor looked like black oil.
But it was the veins that stopped my breath.
Shards from the stone stuck out of his skin like broken glass. The poison from it was now pumping through his open wound with every beat of his heart.
The black lines crawled up his throat, thick and ropy, invading the ashen skin of his face.
He looked at me. His eyes, usually so brutal, were glassy. Unfocused. "Amaria," he rasped.
The sword slipped from his hand. It hit the basalt with a dull clatter that echoed too loudly in the silence.
"Eryndor!"
I lunged for him, catching him just as his knees gave out. He was heavy. Dead weight. I went down with him. His armor dug into my thighs. His head settled in my lap and the weight of him pinned me there. Black ichor smeared across my palms where I held him, slick and fever-hot.
"The magic," he whispered, his breath hitching. A line of black ichor leaked from the corner of his mouth. "The air... it’s empty."
He gasped, a wet, rattling sound. "I can't... draw from it. I can't fight it back."
The realization broke over me.
Fae bodies were conduits. We drew power from the world to heal, to mend, to survive the impossible.
But I had emptied the world.
I had fed the magic to the Void. Every drop of it. The fuel his body needed to fight the corruption, to keep his heart beating against the black crawling up his throat—I had drained it dry.
I had taken his ability to heal himself.
He gripped my wrist. His strength was fading, his fingers trembling against my skin.
"We won, little fox," he breathed, a ghost of a smile touching his lips, oblivious to the horror breaking my heart.
His eyes rolled back. His hand went slack, falling from my wrist to the grey stone.
"Eryndor?" I shook him. "Eryndor!"
Nothing. Just the hollow stillness of a world I had bled dry.
