Chapter 72 The Ancient Barrier
Chapter 72 The Ancient Barrier
Erick's POV
Deborah went limp in Erick's arms, her head falling against his chest. "Deborah." His voice broke. He gently put them both on the ground, holding her close as he felt for her pulse at her throat. It was still beating, strong and steady.
But her eyes stayed closed, her face pale in the moonlight. When he reached out through their connection, he felt only space, like her mind wasn't there.
Her lunar mark on her collarbone glowed silver, so bright he had to squint. The air around them started to hum.
The sound began low, very deep, shaking him. Erick looked up quickly. The spirit wolves were moving away, ears flat, tails tucked. Their sad sounds filled the night high, worried, afraid.
He'd never seen them run from anything before. At the edge of the clearing, the air began to wobble, like heat coming off a hot road.
But this was cold. This was wrong. The wobble spread out in a perfect circle, with Deborah in the middle.
"No." Erick held her tighter. Her hair fell across his arm, dark against his skin. He could smell blood, the forest, and something else that was just her warm and alive and here.
She had to stay here. He brushed her hair back from her face with shaking fingers, his thumb touching her cheek. "Deborah, wake up. Please wake up."
The wobbling air became solid.
Silver light shot up from the ground like a wall, going high into the sky. Erick pulled back, covering Deborah's unconscious body with his own.
The light made a dome see-through, shimmering, covered in glowing symbols that moved too fast to read. It buzzed with power that made his teeth hurt.
The barrier spread out from Deborah's lunar mark in growing circles until it held them both inside a ball of old magic.
"Help!" Erick yelled to the spirit wolves. They walked back and forth outside the barrier now, separated from him by the wall of light.
The biggest one, the leader, jumped forward, showing its teeth, but bounced off the barrier with a yelp.
The others howled, their sound sad and useless. "Get Marcus! Get someone!"
But the wolves couldn't hear him. Or they couldn't understand. They went around the barrier, whining, scratching at the silver light with big paws that left no mark.
Erick looked down at Deborah. Her mark beat with the barrier's hum. Connected. This was coming from her from the promise they had just made, from some old Eclipse magic hidden in her blood.
He'd felt a rush when she spoke the words, felt the power hit their connection like lightning. But this... this was something else. Something older.
He had to move her. Get her away from the center, break whatever connection was powering the barrier. Erick changed how he held her, sliding one arm under her knees, the other holding her shoulders.
She was warm against him, her breath soft against his neck. He stood up, her weight feeling normal in his arms, and took three steps toward the edge of the clearing.
The barrier moved with them.
The dome's center stayed on Deborah, the whole thing moving smoothly through the air as Erick walked. He stopped.
He tried moving in a different direction. The barrier followed, keeping her in the middle no matter where he went. His heart beat fast against his ribs.
"Okay." His voice sounded too loud in the closed-off space. "Okay, think."
The barrier smelled like ozone and moonlight, cold stone and starlight, sharp and clean and very strange. When Erick reached out with his free hand, his fingers felt something push back.
The surface felt solid but electric, buzzing on his skin hard enough to make his bones shake. He pushed harder. The barrier didn't move.
Golden light appeared around his hand, his own power, like the sun, warm. He pressed it against the silver barrier, trying to make a hole, trying to fight against the Eclipse magic with his own strength.
The barrier pulsed. Once. Twice. Then it got brighter, the symbols spinning faster, the hum got louder, like a whine that made his ears ring.
Erick pulled his hand back fast, the golden light fading out the wrong way to try.
His power wasn't strong enough to do anything about this. Whatever this barrier was, it responded only to Deborah.
He felt something through their connection. Not her thoughts, but a pull. It felt like Deborah's spirit was being pulled far away, toward something huge. He tried to reach her through their link, to hold her back, to call her. But she slipped away, pulled by a force he couldn't stop.
"Deborah." He knelt, still holding her, and put his forehead on hers. Her skin was warm. She was still breathing, still alive. But she felt so far away that he could barely sense her. "Come back. Please come back to me."
A memory hit him hard. Stories his father told him when he was young, about the Goddess's first powerful spells. These were barriers that separated the spirit world from the living world, trapping souls. Magic so strong it changed reality.
And those barriers looked like this: silver light, old symbols, and a hum that shook everything.
This wasn't just a shield. It was a seal. And Deborah was in the middle of it.
The barrier started to shrink. Slowly, the dome's edges pulled in. Erick gasped. He looked at Deborah and saw her body glow.
Not just her special mark, but her skin, her hair, everything. Soft, silver light came from her body.
The barrier wasn't just linked to her. It was pulling her inside, absorbing her.
"No." Erick held her tight. "No, you can't take her."
But the pull got stronger. Deborah felt lighter in his arms, less real, like she was turning into light.
He held her harder, digging his fingers into her shoulders, her waist, anywhere he could. She couldn't vanish. She couldn't leave him alone.
Thinking about losing her, watching her turn into nothing while he couldn't do anything, hurt him deeply.
He had spent years keeping people away. He built walls because getting close meant being open to hurt, and hurt meant pain. But Deborah got past all his defenses easily.
She challenged him, made him angry, and made him feel things he thought he'd hidden.
Now, holding her as she left, he knew the truth he tried to avoid: losing her would break him.
Not because of their agreement or any politics. But because she had become important to him.
Somewhere between their fights, their partnership, and the moment she looked at him with strong eyes and wouldn't give up, she had become his.
And he was about to lose her.
"Stay with me." His voice cracked. He put his face in her hair, smelling her scent as it started to disappear, replaced by the smell of strange air and old magic. "Deborah, please. Stay with me."
Her body got warmer. Then hotter. The silver light grew brighter, so bright he had to close his eyes. But he didn't let go. He couldn't. Even as the heat burned his hands, even as the light burned through his closed eyes, he held on.
The barrier's hum turned into a loud shriek.
Deborah's body started to disappear.
She wasn't dying. He could still feel her heart through their connection, still sense her life far away. But her body was breaking apart, becoming see-through, turning into pure silver light.
Erick grabbed her wrist, desperate, but she wasn't solid anymore.
She slipped through his fingers like water, like moonlight, like something no human could hold.
"DEBORAH!"
Her face disappeared first, her features turning into light. Then her body, her legs, everything vanished into the barrier's glow.
He tried to grab her again, but his hands went through where her shoulders were, finding only cold air and the buzzing of old magic.
Through their connection, he felt one last pull. Not towards death, but towards something huge and unknown, something beyond the living world.
Then the connection went silent. Completely, terribly silent.
Deborah was gone.
Erick knelt alone inside the barrier, his empty arms out, his hands shaking. The dome hummed around him, filled with her smell, her power, and a feeling of her being there. But she was gone.
Swallowed by magic he didn't know, pulled to a place he couldn't go.
And he didn't know how to bring her back. Or if she was even still alive.