“Please, can you just—shit—” she cut off with a curse, watching in horror as her hand passed straight through their shoulder. Not because they weren’t solid, but because she wasn’t.

Unable to stop her momentum, she teetered to the side, attempting to regain her balance. But the second she threw her weight onto her injured foot, it gave out, slamming the side of her face into the wall.

Pain exploded from her temple, blurring her vision, and she instinctively shoved backward, stumbling and landing hard on her ass. She threw her hands out to catch herself, a cry bursting from her lips when more shards stabbed into her thighs.

Tears burned in her eyes, and she clutched her chest, feeling ice-cold fear fill it as Jaren’s heart took off. Rolling off the now-bloody stones, she raised a hand to her forehead, her fingers coming back sticky and warm.

Movement caught her attention, and she dropped her hand, staring up with wide eyes as the stranger finally lowered their hood, revealing a mane of dark curls, a smattering of freckles over warm ivory skin, and pointed ears.

“Mbi thothori trush zhu,” she whispered, noting the crushing weight contained in the female’s pale gray eyes, and the deep creases along her forehead and cheeks. She had to be old indeed if her healing was no longer making a difference.

Vera watched in silence as she hovered her hands over a shard in the wall. It was about the size of both of her hands, but for whatever reason, it didn’t glow brighter from her proximity as the others had done to Vera.

The female swallowed, her hands shaking and eyes lining with silver. Whatever she was doing, she didn’t want to be doing it.

“Gods, please forgive me.” Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she placed both hands on either side of the shard and twisted, screaming at the top of her lungs as she did.

The sound of it tearing from the wall cracked through the cavern like thunder, and the ground shook, nearly tossing her on her ass next to Vera.

“What the fuck did you just do?” The words flew from her like word vomit, followed by a squeak when the female whipped around to face her.

Vera could do nothing, limbs frozen in shock, as they locked eyes for the first time, the female’s mouth opening just before a sudden, sharp pain lanced through Vera’s shoulder.

Instinct had her ramming an elbow back into whoever it was attacking her from behind, but there was no one there. She craned her neck, attempting to see what had cut her this time, only for the panic in her chest to skyrocket just before something ripped into her shoulder.

She screamed, slapping a hand over the bleeding wound, and lurched back, eyes darting around in fear. But she could make out nothing as all the shards began to dim, causing the cavern around her to fade like parchment in water.

The last thing she saw was the female pulling back her cloak to tuck the broken shard in a concealed bag. A flash of metal on her empty sheath glimmering against it before everything went black.