Chapter 164 Chapter 164

Chapter 164 Chapter 164
My dragon was furious. I had denied him what he believed was his, and he was tearing me apart from the inside out in retaliation, further accelerating the corruption that had been slowly nipping at the edges of my dragon core.
“Crystal,” I gritted out through clenched teeth, blood spotting my lip. “Crystal...please,”
I clamped my hands over my ears, squeezing my eyes shut, but the voice persisted.

Find her. Mark her now.

“We can't,” I whispered into the dark. “We can't put her through all that.”
Then why does she burn so bright? Why does she call to us?

My dragon roared in my chest, and I cried out, doubling over as another wave of transformation wracked my body.
I could feel myself slipping. My thoughts were slowing, becoming less human, less reasoned.
“Aquila,” I breathed his name. “Aquila... help.”
As though my prayers had been heard by the great dragon god himself, I heard sharp footsteps approaching from somewhere around me.

“ASHER!!”
Aquila’s familiar voice cut through the haze, and relief flooded my chest so fiercely it weakened my knees. Maybe tonight wasn’t the night that I died. Maybe I would not lose myself completely.
“A… Aquil—GAH!”
A sharp, breathless gasp caught me off guard as my back arched clear off the forest floor, searing pain tearing through my chest where my dragon core burned brightest. Ancient fire raged beneath my ribs, eating through every barrier I had ever built, and I bit down hard on my own forearm to keep from screaming her name.
“ASHER! I’M HERE!”
Aquila burst through the trees, cloak flying, chest heaving violently, and skidded to a halt beside me. His eyes widened in horror as he took in the sight of me—twisted, trembling, half-transformed, my silhouette shifting and warping in the dim light as my body fought to reshape itself entirely.
“Fuckin’ hell…” He dropped instantly to his knees beside me, hands hovering uselessly for a heartbeat, terrified to touch me in case he made it worse. “Asher. Look at me.”
“Aquila,” I managed, the words thick and distorted, my tongue already feeling too large, too heavy in my mouth. I reached out, my fingers trembling so badly I could barely grip his arm. “You… you have to help me. You have to keep her away. Keep Crystal away.”
“I know. I know. Just—stay with me.” Aquila’s voice was tight, edged with a terror I had never heard from him before. He scanned me from head to toe, watching the way my eyes flickered between amber and molten gold, the way veins blackened and bulged beneath my skin, the way my breathing came in ragged, smoking gasps. His expression hardened into something grim and determined. “How far along are you?”
“Almost… done.” I gripped his arm harder, fingers digging in deep enough to bruise, and stared at him with everything I had left—every scrap of human will still clinging to the surface. “Aquila… if I shift completely… there will be nothing left of me. You have to keep her away from me.”
Aquila’s brows drew together sharply as he shoved his sleeves back, exposing the runes inked into his forearms. “Shut up for a second! Stop talking about it!”
“But—”
“Asher! Look at me!” He gripped my shoulders, firm and steady, forcing me to focus on him. “I can still salvage this. But I'll need your help with this. Don’t think about her. Don’t think about anything. Empty your mind. Just… don’t think about Crystal for one damn second. Can you fucking do that?”
He said it like it was as easy as breathing. Like I could simply turn off the very thing keeping me human. How could I stop thinking about a woman whose scent still lingered on the tip of my tongue? Whose face was the only thing I saw through the fire? How could I set aside the one thing I was fighting to protect?
But the pain spiked again, blinding and hot, and I nodded frantically, squeezing my eyes shut. “Do it. Do it now.”
Aquila took my arms in his and took a deep breath, steadying himself, and pressed one hand to my chest, and his magic flared—cold and sharp— as he began to chant, low and fast, words that seemed to vibrate through the air and enter into me.

"I'm not even going to lie to you, Asher, but this is going to hurt like a bitch." His tone had a humorous edge to take my mind off the pain, and I appreciated the gesture.

"I've been through...worse," I said through an airy laugh.

"Good. At least your dry sense of humour is still here."

"Fuck you." I strained.

This was the first time he had ever attempted this on me when the transformation was this far advanced, and he knew as well as I did that it could go very badly wrong, but he tried anyway.
Aquila did not tell me how dangerous it was. He did not tell me he might not be strong enough. He just poured everything he had into holding the dragon down and stopping the corruption from spreading.

Black magic. It was as dangerous as it was powerful. But the thing about using it was that something had to be given to use it, and for Aquila, it was a piece of his own humanity.

Black veins crawled beneath Aquila's skin as his eyes dyed an endless shade of black that consumed the light.

The forest went still; the insects stopped singing when the ancient words spilled from Aquila's lips.

The scales on my arms began receding, and somehow it hurt more than when they forced themselves out.

My pained wails cut through the forest, and something inside me screamed back.