Her breath came in ragged hitches, each one a desperate struggle against the rising panic in her chest. She stayed rooted to the spot, eyes fixed on the chaotic silhouette ahead.

  The beast was a blur of violence. It thrashed in a blind fury, his limbs slamming into the ruins with enough force to shatter stone.

  Her heels lifted, an instinctive urge to rush forward straining against the leaden weight of her Body.

  But, her knees buckled. She hit the ground hard, her jaw tightening against the jolt as her hand collided with a jagged stone.

  She seized it instinctively, her fingers locking around the cold weight.

  Without much thought, she flung it deep into the darkness of the far ruins. The rock skipped across the debris, its sharp clatter echoing far beyond the spot where she knelt.

  Immediately, the massive creature snapped its head toward the sound before lunging toward it.

  Lya took her opening. She dashed forward, her gaze darting between the tangled mess of bones ahead and the monster’s silhouette off to the side.

  Riven. He has to be there.

  Her momentum wouldn't let her slow, carrying her until the frantic impacts began to close in again.

  Without a second thought, she threw herself into the grime, skidding beneath a massive arch of bone.

  She stayed there, pressed against the cold earth and making herself small enough to disappear into the shadows of the bone. The ruins fell deathly still, the only sound left was the thundering weight of the predator circling back to its kill.

  As it loomed closer, Lya clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream before it could break.

  A massive limb slammed into the dirt barely an arm’s length away, the impact dull and sickening as the weight flattened the soil right before her eyes.

  Don’t breathe, don’t breathe…

  The tension locked her lungs as the seconds began to stretch into an agonizing eternity. But, the creature suddenly let out a strangled hiss. Its massive form convulsed before breaking into a frantic gallop, the heavy impacts receding until they faded into a hollow silence.

  In its wake, a fragile grey light began to bleed through the horizon, not yet day, but enough to strip the shadows of their depth.

  Lya crawled out from her hiding place, her movements stiff as she stood. Her head darted back and forth with her eyes frantically scanning the debris for any sign of him.

  That same desperate search ended as her gaze snagged on the towering skull of bone

  It’s the skull it had raged against.

  It loomed there, scarred with deep gouges. Below it, her eyes followed a dark drag mark as it cut through the flattened grass and disappeared directly beneath the massive jaw of the skull.

  Lya dropped to her knees by the trail, a sharp splinter of bone clutched in her fist. A desperate urgency drove her to tear into the soil where the mark disappeared beneath the skull, her knuckles scraping against the grit as she forced the shard deeper into the earth.

  As the dirt gave way, Riven’s form finally emerged, half-buried and driven deep into the mire.

  The soft earth had been his only mercy—where stone would have crushed his bones under the monster’s weight, the mud had simply swallowed him.

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and the weight of his broken body slumped against her.

  For a second, Lya simply froze.

  Her eyes were locked onto the blood streaming from the wound that had punctured his abdomen.

  Even then, her trembling hands hovered over his body, hesitant and terrified that any touch might break what little remained of him.

  Finally, she pressed them against his abdomen, forcing every ounce of her focus into her palms.

  A soft green glow began to pulse from her touch, and those familiar threads of light dived into Riven’s body.

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  The cold of the earth was the first thing he felt against his skin.

  He pushed against his hands to try and stand, but a radiating pain climbed through his insides and forced him back down.

  His features contorted as the pain flared.

  Looks like I... I ended up surviving after all. Really, really lucky this time.

  He abandoned the idea to get up for now and simply turned his head to the side.

  Lya was there, leaning back on her locked arms and dripping with sweat while she struggled to catch her ragged breath.

  She flinched and snapped her head toward him as soon as she heard him stirring.

  Her expression was a messy blur of fear and sadness, yet she forced a wide smile.

  "Finally," she whispered, her voice a bit shaky. "You took your time. I... I thought you were never going to wake up."

  Riven offered a weak, lopsided smirk. "And miss seeing you looking this... pristine? You’re a mess, Lya."

  She knitted her brows in fake annoyance, though her eyes were still glassy. "Maybe I should have left you as a pincushion then,"

  He gave a painful shake of his head. "No, I'm good. I think I'll stick with my personal medic."

  She leaned in, her hands trembling as she helped him slide back until he could rest against a solid wall of bone.

  'Looks like its fragment isn't infinite. It has limits.'

  Lya had saved him from death by healing the worst of it, but he wasn't fully restored and his body remained battered and weak.

  She leaned back, her chest still heaving, but she reached out to rest hand on his shoulder. "I did the best I could," she whispered, her voice soft and strained. "But I... I’ve used up every bit of my energy."

  "Your stomach was perforated... organs and all. So many broken ribs and shattered bones. Honestly, Riven... I don't even know how you survived long enough for me to start."

  She forced a small, reassuring smile. "For now, I’ve managed to close the worst of it, but you’re far from being recovered. I’ll keep tending to you over the next few days, I promise…But right now... I just can't do any more."

  Riven simply stayed quiet with his gaze fixed on her for a long moment before he finally leaned his head back against the bone.

  He let out a slow breath—not a wince this time, just a quiet acknowledgment of the state she was in.

  The rest of the day passed quickly even if they never left that spot. Normally, they would have tried to push on, but they didn't even bother. Any progress would have been just a few poor kilometers bought with too much pain and effort for both of them.

  Instead, Riven spent the hours drifting between restless naps and short tentative walks. It wasn't a stroll—it was a grueling test of his limits, each step a calculated struggle against the sharp heat simmering in his gut.

  Lya followed a similar rhythm, her body sunk into a heavy exhaustion that rivaled the fatigue of a full day’s march.

  But, as night began to fall, they were forced to move, if only to set up a makeshift shelter.

  Riven pushed himself up with a strained grunt, pointing toward a spot just a few meters away. It was a massive spinal column, its ribs curving close together to form a natural cage—a roof of bone and walls of ivory that offered at least the illusion of safety.

  "We should be able to hide there," he said, already starting a clumsy walk toward the skeleton.

  Lya followed right beside him, clutching the few belongings they had left, as he navigated the short distance.

  As they finally settled onto the hard ground, she turned to him, her voice low. "Does it feel any better?"

  Riven knit his brows, leaning back cautiously. "I'm alright. Like you said... the wounds are closed, but everything inside is still a mess."

  Lya looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers as if searching for a spark that wasn't there. "I don't think I can keep going tonight anyway. I haven't recovered my energy yet, and it's better if I wait until I'm back to full strength."

  Riven raised an eyebrow, his gaze scanning her face. "Really? You don't look all that tired anymore.”

  Lya let out a soft, tired chuckle. "Ah, I see... I wasn't talking about physical fatigue, Riven. I meant the energy of my fragment."

  The energy of her fragment?

  Seeing the confusion written all over his face, she realized he wanted more. "You see, when you use a fragment... well, when those who have one use it, they consume energy."

  Her eyes brightened a little, as if she were pleased to have found a way to explain it. "Think of it like this... you have your brain with all your knowledge, right? That represents your fragment. And then you have your mouth to speak that knowledge... that’s the energy. If you don't have a mouth to speak, then the knowledge is... well, it’s useless. You can’t do anything with it."

  Alright, maybe not the best example because I'm sure there are a ton of exceptions. But I get the point.

  Riven cleared his throat. "Basically, you need energy to make the fragment work or you... just can't use it, I guess?"

  Lya nodded enthusiastically, her head bobbing in wide movements. "Exactly. That's the Koras."

  "The who?" Riven asked, his brow furrowing.

  "Koras. It's the name of the energy that everyone who possesses a fragment uses."

  Riven let out a heavy sigh, the weight of the day catching up to him. "It’s hard to keep up with all these new names."

  "I can imagine," Lya replied softly, her voice dipping back into that comforting tone. "It's a lot to take in all at once."

  Her words lingered in the quiet of the makeshift shelter as they settled in. But while Lya eventually let her exhaustion take over, Riven stayed awake, leaning back against the cold bone with his eyes fixed on the entrance.

  He was on edge, the memory of the previous night making it impossible to truly let his guard down. Every shadow in the dark felt like a reminder of what was still out there, waiting.