Mae lay motionless on the bed, her skin damp and ghostly pale. Her breaths came shallow and quick, like her body was forgetting how to breathe altogether. Her arms trembled, useless at her sides, while the blood beneath her soaked through the sheets, hot and unrelenting. The room had fallen into a kind of hushed frenzy around her, controlled chaos laced with fear. Lucien knelt beside her, pressing into her abdomen with gloved hands, his jaw clenched, his focus surgical. "You're okay," he said, more to himself than to her. "Stay with me."
Kaine had both babies swaddled against his chest, rocking gently on the floor, his back against the wall. He looked overwhelmed but determined, cradling life as death tried to pull one of them under. Ashar moved like a storm across the room, grabbing towels, soaked linens, anything he could get his hands on. Riven hovered behind Lucien, tense, waiting, his hands clenched at his sides. Sethis had vanished moments ago, chasing down whatever supplies might stop the bleeding.
Mae could barely feel them anymore. The warmth from the fire had turned distant. Her skin felt like paper, her chest hollow. The buzz of the others' voices faded in and out, muffled like they were speaking through water. "I can't," she whispered, but no one heard her. Her eyes fluttered open. She tried to focus, but her vision pulsed, blackness creeping in at the edges. "Lucien," Riven said suddenly, urgent, "She's fading. That amount of blood, she's not going to make it if we don't close the wound."
"I know," Lucien growled, pressing harder, calling up a faint shimmer of tethered energy between his palms. "Don't talk. Just help me keep her here."
"I'm cold," Mae whispered again, a little louder. Her lips trembled. "Something's wrong. Not just me. Something's… here." Everyone stopped moving. It was subtle at first. The firelight dimmed, not from lack of fuel but as though the flame itself had lost confidence. The warmth in the air pulled away, replaced by a creeping chill that sank into the bones. The walls of the room groaned softly, like old wood burdened by too much pressure. The floor beneath them gave the faintest lurch. Lucien's head lifted sharply. The air turned dense. A sound followed, not a noise exactly, but the absence of one. A kind of pressure in their ears, like a scream that had been swallowed before it ever left a throat.
Kaine froze. He sat rigid, both babies clutched protectively against his chest. His eyes widened as he looked across the room, toward the far wall. Not at the wall itself, but at what was forming beside it. The shadows began to ripple. They moved on their own, crawling toward one another like living things, gathering, coiling, compressing. The fire flickered again, guttering to a low, wavering glow. The sound of it no longer crackled. It hissed. Lucien was on his feet in an instant, positioning himself between Mae and the rippling dark, his arms spread slightly, defensive.
"Kaine," Ashar said sharply, his sword already drawn, "get the babies out of here."
But it was already too late. The ripple turned to rupture. Reality split. It didn't tear like fabric. It peeled, slow and deliberate, like a wound opening in the skin of the world. Blackness poured through, not like smoke, not like mist, but like hunger given shape.
A hand emerged. Long. Skeletal. Its fingers stretched impossibly far, knotted and twisting, a dripping void where skin should be. It was made of something that had never known light. Kaine didn't move. He couldn't. His breath hitched, his body paralyzed. The infants in his arms didn't cry. They looked up at the thing reaching for them with wide, eerily calm eyes. "Move!" Riven shouted, wings bursting wide.
Kaine tried. He really did. He stood, one knee buckling, twisting his body to shield the babies with his own. But the hand moved like thought, soundless and immediate. It passed through the air between them without friction, without mercy. It touched Kaine's back. And he vanished. The babies went with him. No scream. No flash. No blood. They were there. And then they were not. Lucien was the first to react, roaring as he lunged forward, but the void snapped shut before he could reach it. One moment it was there, a hole in the world, a hand from the beyond, and the next it was gone, the air still and empty as though it had never existed.
Only the flickering fire remained, casting long shadows against the walls, indifferent to the devastation it illuminated. Sethis burst through the door, arms full of supplies, and froze. "Where are they?" he asked. "Where's Kaine?" No one answered. Mae made a sound, something between a sob and a scream. Her body convulsed, not from labor now, but from shock, grief, blood loss, and terror. Lucien dropped to his knees beside her, catching her head before it hit the floor. "They're gone," she whispered, her voice hollow, barely there. "He took them." Lucien said nothing. He just held her, eyes fixed on the corner of the room where the veil had opened. It had a message. And it had taken what mattered most. For now.
Lucien didn't move. He held her as her body went limp in his arms, her weight far too still. The warmth was draining from her skin, her chest no longer rising with breath. Riven dropped to his knees beside them. "She's not breathing."
"No," Lucien murmured, shaking his head as though that alone would change the truth unraveling in front of them. "No. No no no." Ashar turned, his face white, his sword falling to the floor with a heavy clatter. "She's not-"
"She's not gone," Lucien snapped. The words were more hope than truth. But Mae's head lolled back, her lips parted slightly. Her eyes were closed. Still. Too still. Sethis stumbled forward, dropping the supplies with a curse. "Move," he growled, already kneeling, pressing fingers to her neck. "She has no pulse." Lucien's hands were trembling, but his grip never loosened. The blood beneath her was cold now. The room was silent, save for the hiss of the dying fire. "Do something," Ashar snarled. "You're not just going to let her die."
Lucien stared down at her, jaw clenched, heart splintering open in a way it never had before. The tether. He could feel it slipping. His own internal chains trembled, rattling. If she let go, so would he. Then, something shifted. The air thickened. A pulse, faint, not of blood or breath, but of energy, thrummed in Lucien's chest. A surge of power that didn't come from him. It came from her. Lucien's eyes widened. "Wait-" A crackle. A shimmer beneath Mae's skin. Her spine arched, mouth opening in a silent gasp. And then, she inhaled. Violent. Shaky. Desperate. She coughed, choking on air, her body seizing as her lungs remembered life.
Riven nearly fell back, stunned. Sethis froze mid-motion. Ashar stepped forward as if drawn by gravity. Lucien didn't let go. Mae's eyes fluttered open, but they didn't focus. They burned faintly, violet and gold, shimmering with something not human. She had died, again. This time, something had followed her back.