Chapter 113 – The Edge of the Abyss
***Rowan***
The magic hit him like a tidal wave of darkness.
One moment, Rowan was cutting through the chaos of battle, his body slick with blood, his focus locked on the Bonecaster. The next—
Pain.
Raw, searing, soul-shattering pain.
The blast of dark magic slammed into his chest, lifting him off the ground like he weighed nothing at all. He barely had time to register the sizzling burn crawling over his ribs before his body was flung through the air like a broken doll. The sky twisted above him, blood and ash blurring his vision as he spun midair.
Then came the landing.
The jagged ridge of a boulder met his back with bone-crunching force. A sickening *crack* echoed through his skull as the back of his head connected with stone, stars bursting behind his eyes. Something sharp tore through his side—he didn’t know if it was the rock or his own rib puncturing from the inside—but suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
His body crumpled to the base of the rock with a lifeless thud.
Giselle’s scent hit him through the blood and smoke, her soothing voice calling out to him. “Rowan,” she whispered, her voice thick with horror. “Look at me—look at me!”
He blinked up at her, unfocused, his lips stained with red. “Giselle…” It was all he could get out past the pain.
“Don’t talk. Just breathe.” Her hands pressed over his wounds, frantic, shaking. “You’re going to be fine. Do you hear me? I won’t let you die.”
Everything hurt. His limbs screamed. His chest felt caved in. His wolf howled somewhere in the back of his mind, but even that voice was distant—muffled behind a curtain of agony and silence. The bond—the bond to Giselle—flickered, like a candle caught in a windstorm.
He tried to move. Nothing obeyed.
*Get up,* he told himself. *You have to get up.*
But his body betrayed him, trembling beneath him like a fallen tree ready to shatter.
Blood filled his mouth, thick and metallic. His lungs wheezed, trying to pull in air that wouldn’t come. A heavy numbness began to creep in around the pain, like his body was already starting to let go.
*No,* he snarled in his mind. *Not yet. I’m not done.*
But the battlefield around him faded into a far-off dream. He could no longer hear the clash of swords or the cries of warriors. Only his heartbeat—slow, thudding… too slow.
His vision dimmed.
He thought of Giselle—her fierce eyes, her steady hands, the way she looked at him like he was worth something. He wanted to see her again. Just one more time.
His wolf’s voice cried out, but even that began to unravel into nothing.
And then—
Darkness.
Complete and consuming.
Like sinking into the abyss.
But even as the shadows pulled at him, Rowan clung to a single thread—Her name.
*Giselle.*
If he was going to die, it would be with her name on his soul.
The abyss was endless.
A hollow void stretched around him, neither warm nor cold, neither pain nor peace—just nothing. Rowan floated in it, disoriented, weightless, stripped of every sense that once tethered him to the world. Time didn’t exist here. He wasn’t sure if minutes had passed or millennia.
There was nobody. No voice.
Only awareness.
Only the echo of a soul slowly dimming.
He waited. For what, he didn’t know. Death? Peace? Maybe something worse.
He wasn’t afraid. Not really. Not anymore. But he was alone. So utterly, achingly alone.
Then—A flicker.
Small, at first. Like the briefest pulse of light in a sea of shadow. A sound followed, soft as a breeze, yet piercing straight through the void like a blade of light.
"Come back to me." The voice broke through the blackness—familiar, warm, hers.
*Giselle.*
It struck him with more force than any blade, cracking something wide open inside of him. The darkness around him seemed to shudder, tremble, recoil from the power of her voice.
"Come back to me," she whispered again, her voice wrapping around him like a thread of silver, tugging—tethering.
Rowan’s senses surged toward it like a starving flame reaching for oxygen. Something touched him—no, kissed him—just beneath his jaw. He couldn’t feel his body, but somehow, he felt her.
Her lips, brushing against skin. Her tears, soaking into his chest. Her heartbeat—thundering with grief and fierce love—calling out to him across their bond.
"Please, Rowan."
He felt her hand over his heart. Her scent, wild and warm, seeped into the darkness. Her magic—light and golden and trembling—flowed like a stream to where he drifted in the dark.
"I’m here. I’ve always been here."
The words wrapped around him, gentle as a lullaby, but stronger than steel.
"Come back to me."
He remembered her smile. The fire in her eyes. The way her hand fit perfectly in his. The way she had fought beside him—never behind, never afraid. She had chosen him, again and again.
And now—She was still choosing him.
His soul reached for her like a drowning man breaching the surface. Her voice became a lifeline, growing louder, steadier, realer with every beat of his heart that stubbornly refused to stop.
Rowan opened his mouth to speak, to tell her he heard her—but no words came.
Instead, he felt the bond between them snap taut like a rope pulled from the depths. A surge of warmth spread through him, and with it, sensation. Pain. Breath. Light.
The darkness began to splinter.
And somewhere far above him, Rowan began to rise.
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