Darrian's POV
---
I sat in the infirmary, my hands clasped around Heather's cold ones. Her skin had gone pale as snow, her lips tinted blue. Every shallow breath sounded like a countdown.
She was slipping away.
I refused to accept it.
Healers moved in and out quietly, administering what little remedies they had left, but nothing worked. The wolfsbane had invaded her bloodstream, coiling like a parasite around her organs. They whispered that she might not survive the night.
I closed my eyes and lowered my head to her chest, feeling the softest thud of her heartbeat, slow and irregular.
"Please," I whispered. "I'll do anything. Just let her live."
Silence answered me.
Until it wasn't silence at all.
A wind swept through the room, cold but not of this world. The candles extinguishe
