A Shattered Defense
The silence after their departure was deafening, a void filled with despair. Isla dropped to her knees, her arms clutching at the empty air where the twins had been moments ago. Her silver light flickered and faded, leaving her shrouded in darkness. The chamber reeked of smoke and magic, the remnants of the battle etched into the crumbling walls.
She turned to Draven, her breath catching in her throat. He lay sprawled on the ground, his powerful frame battered and motionless. “No,” she whispered, crawling to his side. “Draven, please…please don’t leave me.”
His pulse was faint, his breathing shallow. Isla pressed her trembling hands to his chest, summoning whatever shreds of power she could muster. The sensation of her magic felt weak, fragile. “Stay with me,” she begged, her voice breaking as tears fell onto his bruised skin. “I can’t do this without you.”
Moments stretched into eternity, the air heavy with fear. Then Jamie appeared, her expression pale and stricken as she surveyed the wreckage. Her voice was barely above a whisper, trembling with sorrow. “Alaric—he’s gone,” she choked out, her grief-laden words dropping like stones into the suffocating silence.
The words hit Isla like a physical blow, her chest tightening painfully as her head spun. Alaric, the one who had sworn to protect them all, was truly gone. Her babies had been torn from her arms, carried away by Eira’s cruel hands. And now, Draven was barely clinging to life, his fate teetering on a knife’s edge.
A sob escaped her lips as the weight of the moment crashed over her. For the first time, she felt utterly, irrevocably alone. Yet, even in the depths of this despair, her hand didn’t leave Draven’s chest, her voice low but steady as she uttered a quiet prayer. “Moon Goddess… if you can hear me… I need your strength. Please. Don’t take them all from me. Not all of them.”
Somewhere in the distance, the rubble shifted, but Isla could no longer summon the will to look. All she had left was hope—hope that the Moon Goddess would answer, that her family could somehow be made whole again.
