Chapter 17 · The Hollow Cure - Chapter 17: Blood on the Blade

"Stay with me, damn it!" Kael screamed, his voice cracking as he slammed Lyra’s limp body against the stone altar.

Her heart wasn't beating. Not really. In its place, the crystal core—that jagged, beautiful parasite—was dimming, turning a sickly, opaque grey. The silence in the ruins was worse than the screaming of the monsters outside. It meant she was slipping.

"Don't you dare die on me," he hissed, his fingers trembling as he ripped open her collar. "We had a deal, Lyra. You don't get to leave until I get my name back."

Outside the heavy iron doors, something slammed against the metal. A wet, screeching sound that echoed through the vaulted ceiling. The crystal-warped horrors were close. They could smell her blood. They could smell *his*.

Kael didn't look at the door. He couldn't. He looked at the core in her chest. It was cold. Too cold.

"I don't have the tools," he whispered, glancing at his empty kit. "I don't have the serum."

He looked at his own forearm. The veins were pulsing, dark and heavy. He was a forbidden surgeon; he knew exactly what the taboo texts said about blood-transfusion into a parasitic core. It was suicide.