Chapter 8 · The Hollow Cure - Chapter 8: The Dead Man's Mind

"Do it. Now," Lyra spat, her voice shaking but her eyes locked on Kael.

She was leaning against the cold stone altar, her chest heaving. The crystals on her collarbone were pulsing a violent, jagged violet, creeping closer to her throat with every breath. She looked like a dying masterpiece, beautiful and terrifyingly fragile.

Kael didn't move. His scalpel hovered an inch above the gray, preserved flesh of the man on the table. This wasn't just some corpse. This was Master Valerius. The man who had taught Kael everything about forbidden anatomy. The man who had eventually branded him a heretic and cast him into the gutters of the city.

"I can't just slice into him like a piece of livestock," Kael muttered. His fingers were trembling. It was a subtle vibration, but in the silence of the ruins, it felt like an earthquake. "The neural crystals are fused. If I slip by a millimeter, I don't just miss the cure—I shatter the memory core. We lose everything."

Lyra let out a sharp, ragged laugh that ended in a cough. A small shard of crystal flew from her lip, clicking against the floor. "Lose everything? Kael, look at me.