The world had slowed into something sharp and unbearable.
Leo's scream still echoed through the broken forest—raw, torn from a place deeper than pain.
Amaya felt his hand slip from hers, felt the pull of gravity, felt the tearing of their half-formed bond—
—but she did not fall.
Not in the way the priestess had expected.
For as Leo hit the ground—knees breaking earth, blood dripping from his claws—Amaya's body stopped mid-air, suspended in a cradle of shimmering gold.
Her eyes were closed.
But she was breathing.
Barely.
The golden cracks along her chest pulsed like wildfire beneath her skin, each pulse a scream echoing silently in her bones.
Leo's heart thrashed violently in his chest.
"Amaya—AMAYA!"
He lunged upward to catch her—
But a black chain of aura snapped around his throat.
The priestess yanked it back—
Slamming Leo into the ground.
He gagged, vision sparking, claws digging deep into the soil as he tried to rise.
