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Lilith can feel her heart pounding violently and the wind crashing against her pointed ears, deafening her.
Her grip tightens around the polished wood of her staff, palisman flying as fast as it's capable of. She can also feel Luz's trembling arms as she holds on to her waist for dear life, only prying her head and torso off of the older woman to turn around and report wether or not they're still being chased. They seemed to be clear, for now.
They slow down and fly closer to the island, only around fifty feet off the ground now, looking for a safe place to land where they'd be able to catch their breath and resume their escape.
Lilith's barely spotted clear ground when she hears the sound of a spell circle being cast from somewhere behind her, not having enough time to react before a forceful impact knocks them both off the staff. She hears a choked gasp.
Her reflexes finally catch up to her while they're still falling and she reaches out to wrap her arms around the smaller human, turning them both around just in time to lessen the impact as she lands on her back, shielding Luz with all of her body, rolling serveral feet on the ground before scrambling to her feet when she hears shouting behind her.
With aching, scraped limbs, she quickly draws out her last invisibility glyph and holds her breath, one hand blocking both of Luz's airways as the other drags her behind the shrubs next to them. She shuts her eyes, sitting with her back pressed against a tree and silently prays to the Titan, waiting for the nearby footsteps to fade away. A drop of sweat runs down her face.
After a few agonizing seconds she finally takes a gasping breath and releases her hold on Luz, the human's reaction alarmingly subdued. Then, the transparent cloak wears off. "Luz, are you alright?" she asks in a whisper.
She turns to properly face the girl in front of her but freezes at the sight, gasping, a hand moving on it's own to clamp over her mouth.
Luz looks significantly less bruised that Lilith, that much is true.
But color is draining from her skin, her face is contorted in pain and she's gripping her side with a shaking hand and keeping herself up on her knees with the other, though she looks just about ready to collapse. There's a small puddle of blood still forming underneath her that was previously invisible.
The spell that hit them. It had been an ice spell.
It had pierced her.
Luz looks up for a moment, her wide eyes meeting Lilith's. Her lips are slightly parted, as if she's trying to say something but she's unable to.
And then her legs give out, the girl falling into the red-stained ground beneath her. The sudden motion snaps Lilith out of her shocked state.
"Luz. Oh no. Oh Titan, no, no, no, no-" Lilith is almost hyperventilating now, but she manages to keep her focus on the girl in front of her. She leans closer towards her, carefully turning the human around before tearing off the lower part of her own dress and trying to stop the bleeding with it. It's not helping. Luz is unconscious now.
She presses her fingers against the child's wrist and tries to mentally calculate what the stable pulse for a Bile sac-less heart should feel like. Whatever it is, this isn't it. Cursing under her breath, she lifts an outstretched hand, her palisman swiftly obeying her call as she catches her staff. "Get help. Now." She commands, her voice cracking. She sends it off with that same speed, the wooden raven apparently understanding the urgency of the situation.
"Luz, dear, please stay with me." She feels the tightness in her throat when she speaks and realizes that she's crying. She moves an arm behind Luz's back and holds the girl up into a sitting position as gently as possible, her heart breaking at the feeling of the human's body, light and limp and unnaturally cold against her own. Her other hand moves to the back of Luz's head, cradling it against the crook of her neck.
She's running out of time. It doesn't matter if Eda isn't far from them, Luz isn't gonna make it.
She's going to die on me and there's nothing I can do.
Nothing except...
She doesn't hesitate. She knows it's a terrible idea, and that chances of success are extremely low, but it is her last resort. If she doesn't at least try, she'll never be able to live with herself. She owes it to Eda- no, she owes it to Luz. No matter what, this child has to return home safe.
The hand behind Luz's head shifts, and for a second, Lilith just stares into the human's eyes. Half-closed, sunken, unfocused. Please. She softly presses their foreheads together, closing her eyes and placing all of her focus on harnessing whatever magic was still left in her. Please. Just this once.
"With this spell declared, let the pain be shared."
Her heartbeat accelerates to it's limit in an attempt to reactivate her nearly-depleted bile sac, magic flowing through her and around the human with a muted, flickering glow.
Already, she feels like she's run a three lap marathon around the Isles. Her debilitated body protests against her efforts, limbs spasming and straining from the exertion of pushing the magic out of her system. She feels lightheaded. She keeps going.
Lilith winces when she feels a sharp pain. Good. There's a finger-sized puncture wound magically forming at her side. But Luz is still bleeding. She has to stop that, or else it will all be pointless.
She has never done something like this before. Not even when she would cast the spell on Edalyn when they were younger. But that wasn't going to stop her. Nothing was. She wouldn't stop if it cost her everything.
She's blacking out now, her chest is heaving and she keeps momentarily losing her sight and balance. She tightens her hold on the human with trembling hands in fear of her slipping from her grasp. The wound on her body must be bigger than the one on Luz's at this point. "Just... just a little more..."
She inhales and gives her heart one last forceful push, draining her completely. She screams in pain, gripping the fabric of the human's cloak with tight fists and digging her nails into the resilient fabric.
There's a small outburst of blue light that quickly dissipates.
Lilith struggles to catch her breath. She can see through her blurry vision that the deep red spot previously on Luz's body had disappeared completely. She smiles to herself. Weakened by the curse, and yet she finally managed to perfect the spell she worked her whole life on. She wonders if Edalyn would be proud of her.
Eda... she will be here soon. Luz lost a lot of blood, but she's already started to recover. She's strong enough. She would live. Lilith managed to protect her.
Once the adrenaline wears off, Lilith finds that her body has nothing else to run on. She's completely out of magic, out of energy, nearly out of oxygen, and is currently running out of blood.
So when she hears a muffled groan and feels the girl in her arms begin to stir, she finally stops fighting, her eyes rolling back before closing and the arms that had been securely wrapped around the human going limp along with the rest of her body.
She had traded her own life without a trace of doubt for someone she had considered objectively inferior not long ago. Someone who she herself had almost-
No. She doesn't want those to be her last thoughts.
When she thought she didn't even deserve anyone's compassion, Luz had given her so much more than that. She had gifted her a chance at redemption. A new life. One where she could thrive. Where she would love and allow others to love her, unconditionally. That was the happiest she had been ever since she was a teenager. And it was all thanks to Luz.
I wish I could have done more for her, she regretfully thinks. For all of them.
"Lilith!"
She doesn't feel herself hit the ground. Somebody, probably Luz, had caught her. She feels somebody else reaching out to hold her as well. And she can hear Eda and Hooty's voices now, too. Even King is somewhere in there. She doesn't even know when they got here. She can't register any words. Her senses are failing and everything is a little farther away now.
She's not in pain anymore.