Chapter 22 · Blood Resonance

"Don't touch the Shard." Kael caught my wrist before my fingers closed around it.

The crystal hovered above the dead woman's chest, pulsing red through the dust and broken wires. Every pulse hit my bones like a second heartbeat.

"Take your hand off me," I said.

"Not until you step back."

"Then you'll be holding me all night."

His grip tightened. Warm fingers. Hard palm. Too steady for a man standing three feet from an armed church patrol and a Shard that had already torn through one body.

Behind us, boots struck the basement stairs.

Kael's eyes cut toward the sound. "Guards. Three, maybe four."

"I counted six."

"You counted wrong."

"I was the Saint of this city before you started hunting people for a living. I don't count wrong."

The Shard flared.

The woman on the floor jerked once. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Black veins crawled up her neck, then vanished under her collar.

Kael released me and dropped beside her. "She's alive."

"Barely."

"That still counts."

"It won't in thirty seconds. The guards will find us, kill her, and take the Shard."

"Then help me move her.