The Stone-Hide, that mountain of rocky scales that before had radiated an unshakeable grandeur, now reduced itself to a trembling mass, a shell about to shatter. It roared no more. The sound that came from its half-open mouth was an asthmatic hiss, the sound of ice crystals forming in lungs that should have burned with the hot blood of a predator.
Falazahr observed, with a strangeness that numbed her senses, the monster's paws. They weakened. The beast attempted an advance, a final spasm of hunger, but its joints seemed to lock.
The creature thrashed—a rhythmic tremor, profound, as if the very essence of its life were withering in an abyssal cold.
The blue fire that does not burn... it steals the heat, she thought, the tips of her fingers still tingling with an icy electricity.
What have I done? What did Khulag deposit in my veins?
— Heridor... — His name came out as a stumble.
She turned her eyes away from the beast and the world began to bleed again.
Heridor lay stretched upon the carpet of ferns, which were now no longer green, but a dark and sticky purple. The pain of the arm's absence cried out in silence in the landscape. The blood gushed in spurts, each one weaker than the last, like a biological clock counting the few minutes of life he had left.
— Wake up, guide! We must return! — she whispered, walking to him.
She placed Heridor's intact arm over her shoulders. He weighed like a fallen tree; a mass of flesh and bone draining away. Behind them, the Stone-Hide released a final moan and collapsed under its own body, its yellow eyes fading in a cold haze.
It would not follow them. Not today.
Perhaps never again.
They returned to the place where most of the humans stayed—a forest still without a name. Falazahr did not possess the physical strength of great predators, but she possessed enough stubbornness to carry her friend.
Each step being a negotiation with gravity.
— Why do you insist on spilling yourself? — she scolded his blood, treating the liquid as if it were a traitor. — You cannot take him without first he has used his own name!
Heridor mumbled something. His eyes were rolled back, searching for something on the horizon, the paleness of his face was the same as the floating clouds of the sky.
— The cold... — he managed to say, in a weak whisper that seemed to echo from a distant darkness.
— The cold will pass, Heridor. The world is new, remember? The sun is out there. — She affirmed with the sweetness of a mother, while she felt his warmth abandon the skin in contact with hers.
They reached the edge of the forest where the other humans huddled. No one saw them immediately.
Dusk began to take the tops of the trees, and the shadows stretched, as if they wanted to reach Falazahr. She laid him upon a bed of dry moss, beneath the arch of an immense root. The bleeding did not stop.
Then, she closed her eyes:
Think, Falazahr. What could save him?
The panic was a high tide. Some humans felt distressed seeing Heridor's bleeding, while others showed concern and alertness in their expressions, approaching only as observers.
She did not think of the people around her or how they could help. She had only the memory of Khulag's dream and the smell of iron that emanated from her only friend's body.
Khulag... if you gave me this burden, give me also the hand to carry it!
She implored and said:
— Heridor, stay with me! Do not give up yet! — His eyes were only white slits.
The dilemma was a blade at her neck: if she did nothing, he would bleed to his last breath; if she used the flame, she could "extinguish" his life as she apparently had done to the Stone-Hide.
And if I freeze him inside? And if his heart stops like the beast's?
— No... I cannot — she whispered, pulling her hand away from the wound. — I will kill him. I will finish what that monster began. — Falazahr said aloud and the others grew confused by her words.
The blood gave a new jolt, flowing across the moss. Heridor's paleness was now undeniable. There was no more time for doubt. It was the risk or the certainty of death.
Falazahr closed her eyes, tears streaming hot, the only warmth that seemed to remain in the world. She concentrated not on the fury she had felt in the ravine, but on the desperate desire for preservation.
With trembling fingers and a hesitation that almost made her muscles lock, she brought her palm near the open wound. The blue flame began to emerge, but this time she tried to contain it, smother it, transform it into a faint glow.
— Please... please... — she murmured like a prayer.
As soon as her hand reached the exposed wound, the sensation was overwhelming. Heridor released a ragged and harsh gasp, his entire body contracting in a spasm of intense pain. Falazahr pulled her hand back by impulse, his scream terrifying her, but she forced herself to remain.
She saw, with her heart in her mouth, the meeting of the flame with the blood. There was no hiss of burning flesh, but a sharp crack.
The bluish fire, this time, acted surgically under Falazahr's desperate will. Instead of spreading through his body like a cold poison, it concentrated on the surface. The blood, upon touching the smoking light, dried instantly.
It was a cauterization. And, at last, the bleeding had stopped, interrupted by an ember that weakened life, but that, also, preserved it.
Falazahr withdrew her hand, gasping. She observed Heridor's face.
He was not dead. His chest rose and fell slowly, almost imperceptible, but constant.
— Thanks to Khulag… — she released a nervous laugh, which soon transformed into a sob. — ...you are still here!
Leaning over him, exhaustion dominated her. Although the immediate danger had ceased, the burden of her actions persisted. She had saved her friend, resorting to the same power that annihilated the creature—the line between cure and curse had just become as thin as a hair.
Looking at Heridor's dry and staunched shoulder, Falazahr realized that the reborn world would demand a high price from her. She was not merely a woman with a new name; she was the bearer of a type of ability that needs to be tamed.
— Falazahr... — he gasped, opening his eyes…