Chapter 158: Go and don't look back

Chapter 158: Go and don't look back
~Ragel's POV~

I ran through the collapsing palace calling her name. I didn't know why the building was falling but for whatever reason, I prayed to the gods I hadn't believed in for a while to save her and keep her safe.

"Lyra!" My voice echoed through corridors that were falling apart. The crystal walls were cracking and melting like hot boiling liquid around me but I didn't stop. My heart tells me I am so close. "Lyra, where are you?"

I followed her scent and what I smelled scared me. I could smell blood and another scent that had both our scent.

The floor beneath my feet buckled and shifted and the very air seemed to be fighting against me, trying to keep me from reaching her.

But I was a beast king. I had survived worse than a collapsing damn palace.

I pushed forward through a corridor that was collapsing in real fast. Stones fell on either side of me. One caught my shoulder and I felt it break but I kept moving.

I felt pain was irrelevant and nothing mattered except finding her.

"Lyra!" I roared her name again. My beast was ready to take over now believing I wasn't been fast enough.

I fought against him although it wasn't easy with my eyes already gold, my claws extended.

Just when I was about to give him rein to whatever he wanted, her scented floated to where I was.

It wasn't faint like the others, it feels so close that I could almost taste her in the air.

I turned a corner and there she was.

Lyra was barely standing against a corridor wall that was still partially intact but shaking badly.

With a bundle wrapped against her chest and a cloth binding holding what I assume is our baby to secure her.

Lyra's hair was wild and matted with blood. Her face was pale from exhaustion and blood loss because I could see cuts on her arm and side stomach.

Shouldn't her wolf help her heal? She was wearing only a shift that was torn and stained. She looked like she had been through hell.

When I got a little closer to her, I stopped running completely. Everything in me went absolutely still.

As if I couldn't function properly. My eyes went down to our child, her beautiful adorable eyes were open.

Pure gold and her mother's hair looking at me with curiosity. Tears prickled my eyes but I tried to hold them back.

How long? How long ago was my daughter born? Lyra looked like she had not seen me or even noticed me.

"Lyra," I choked out. It was in that second she looked at me and the world ceased to exist for me.

I didn't care that the palace was falling apart, all I could see was everything written across her face.

Months of captivity, the fear and as her lips tremble as well as her eyes. It was as if I could read her mind because I could see and feel sadness of her believing she might never see me again.

The exhaustion of carrying our child alone in this realm. Unable to hold herself back, she broke into tears.

Her shoulders shook with the force of it like her body was finally releasing three months of held breath and terror.

"Ragel," she breathed. “ Are you real? Please be,” she whimpers.

I reached out to her unable to speak, I tasted my tears for the first time in my life, seeing her cry and look so broken had me in tears.

She took my hand and I pulled her toward me and we collided together with our baby between us. .

I wanted to hug her properly but I made so do with what I have been blessed with.

I held both of them like they might disappear if I let go. Lyra seems to welcome the contact, resting her head against my chest.

I feel her wrap her free arm around me, her other arm cradling our daughter.

We stood there in the middle of a collapsing palace and held each other like we were the only two things that mattered in the universe. Like nothing else existed and we weren't about to die.

When we finally pulled back, I looked down at my little girl.

My daughter looked back at me with wide eyes. She was so small and her fingers were tiny.

Her face was perfect in every way that mattered. She was the most incredible little adorable baby I had ever seen in my entire existence.

My beast purred as if it had finally found home and whatever we had been missing, we have gotten it.

"She's beautiful," I whispered. "Just like her mother. What's her name?”

She smiles softly as she looks at me. "Arianna. She has your eyes," Lyra said. Her voice was hoarse. "They're gold like yours,” she repeated.

I nodded at her. "And blood moon born too," I said. I reached out and touched Arianna's face gently.

She grabbed my finger with her tiny hand and held on with surprising strength. "She's so beautiful, Lyra. She's perfect…”

A loud crashing sound shook the hall, taking us off balance, I held onto Lyra and our baby to keep them from falling.

"We need to go," Lyra said urgently. "The palace is…"

The entire corridor shook again and a violent tremor that made the walls crack and the ceiling begin to crumble followed.

Stones started falling all around us, chunks of crystal raining down like a hailstorm.

I could hear the sound of the structure failing, groaning under the weight of its own collapse.

I immediately pulled them both close and called my power forward.

Magic flowed from me creating a shield above us that caught the falling stones and diverted them away from Lyra and Arianna.

I wrapped my magic around them like a cloak, protecting them from the destruction.

I could feel the strain of it, but I did not stop at all. "Hold onto me," I cried out. "Don't let go."

"I won't," Lyra promised. Her hand gripped my arm so tightly I could feel her nails digging into my skin. It was the most real thing I had felt since I lost her.

We ran and the corridor began collapsing faster, the tearing itself turned to molten black liquid that looks like it could melt anyone that touches it.

I kept the shield around them while we ran, I kept the magic flowing through my veins even as it likes it's going to be burned out

But all that matters to me is keeping them safe. My body screamed for me to stop but my beast pushed further.

I saw the entrance and I smiled, we were going to make it out.

We reached a larger chamber and for just a moment, I actually thought we were going to make it to the entrance.

However, a ceiling came down in a huge chunk of crystal the size of a house.

I had to think fast but I saw I couldn't redirect it and I couldn't shield them against something that enormous created with a god power.

My power wasn't enough. And if I wasted any time, we would die here so I made a split-second decision.

I gathered all my power into one final spell and shoved Lyra and Arianna forward with magic..

They flew through the air toward the palace entrance, and toward safety, while I collapsed finally at my limit.

I could feel Lyra screaming but I couldn't hear her over the sound of the collapsing structure.

I tried to pull myself up and follow them but the crystal came down.

It caught me across the chest and shoulder, pinning me to the ground with a weight that was impossible to move.

Pain exploded through my body. I felt my bones break and whatever is left of my ribs shatter.

Slowly, my power started scattering, and dissipating, unable to hold against the power of a god's own creation turning against me.

I looked up and saw Lyra at the palace entrance with Arianna in her arms.

She was screaming my name and she was struggling against the guards who were trying to pull her out of the palace entrance, to save her from the collapsing structure.

"Go!" I shouted to her. My voice was clogged with blood. "Go! Take her and go! Don't look back!"

"Ragel!" she screamed. "No! Ragel!"

Everything was getting dark and then there was nothing but darkness and the feeling of falling into an abyss with no bottom.