Duskfire Glacier the gods call your name

they came in a swarm from the mountains, bounding downwards to meet her where she stood.

she could feel it—feel herself dying. breath rattling thinly in her chest, her throat crushed beneath the force of sun eater’s jaws. the puncture wounds in her neck ran deep, feeding the earth with her blood, and still she stumbled forward. don’t fall. don’t fall. don’t fall. if you fall, you will not get back up.

she did not know when she first smelled him. blackfell. only that the sound of his roar shattered through the forest, and then suddenly he was there, hot and furious, pressing himself to her side and holding her upright. gjalla did not have the strength to meet his gaze. only to stand, barely, though her limbs trembled beneath her own weight. her body was screaming stop moving, stop fighting, but her heart did not know how to yield.

more voices. morwenna’s cry pierced the air like a grieving mother, and a sharp pang of guilt bloomed hot and wet in her chest. don’t. don’t cry for me. she could not bear it. her sister’s muzzle brushed against her side, but gjalla did not respond, could not respond—her throat was too mangled. she could taste the iron-heavy blood flooding her mouth, drowning her voice. 

blackfell’s going to kill him.

the thought barely formed before she was wrenching her body toward him, her jaw working, forcing some desperate noise from her ravaged throat. a choked, garbled snarl. no. no, no, no—stay. he could not leave her like this. she needed him here—needed him alive. if he chased sun eater now, he may not come back. worse, she may not be here to greet him.

but blackfell was all fire and vengeance, a blaze stoked to a wildfire, his body coiled like a spring ready to break. his touch burned where it steadied her, and she could feel the violent tremble of his muscles, barely restrained. his command for faust to summon a healer only further stoked her panic. he was not staying. he was not staying?

"stay—" the word came mangled, unrecognizable through the wet slur of blood in her mouth, but she tried again. "stay."

her teeth grit as she tried to shift her weight against him—keep him here. her limbs barely responded, strength draining from her like water through cracked stone. she could feel her own blood clumping thick in her fur, streaking her face, her throat, her chest. the world spun around her.