All Chapters of Marked and Cast Out, She Came Back Untouchable : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Sable's POVThey laid Alaric down behind a half-collapsed stone wall at the courtyard's edge, the closest thing to shelter anyone could find with fire eating through two of the watchtowers now, throwing everything into a flickering orange glow that made the whole scene look like something out of a nightmare."How is he?" Corwin asked, dropping to one knee beside me, blood still streaking down his jaw from a cut I hadn't noticed him take."Breathing. Barely." I kept my hands pressed against his chest, pouring what strength I had left into keeping the thread of life still clung to him from snapping completely. "I can't fix this, Corwin. Not out here, not like this.""Then what do we do?"I didn't have an answer. My arms shook with exhaustion, my own body screaming at me to stop, and still the mark under my collarbone kept pulsing weak and irregular, tangled hopelessly now with what was failing inside his chest.The battle hadn't slowed. If anything it had gotten worse since word spread

Ophelia's POVI watched the storm break from the inn's upper window, lightning tearing across a clear sky in a way that had no business happening, and understood immediately that whatever Bastian's forces were facing on the other side of that wall, it wasn't going the way I promised him it would.That changed things. If Ironclaw somehow held, if Sable Kestrel really was capable of the kind of power the rumors suggested, then Bastian's forces might break before they ever secured control of the territory, and my promised safe passage would be worth exactly nothing.I needed to be gone before anyone had time to sort out who won and who hadn't.The strongbox I left with the innkeeper for safekeeping held enough coin to get me clear of the region entirely, but it wasn't everything. My mother's jewelry still sat in a hidden compartment back at the estate, pieces worth more than the rest of what I managed to take combined, and I wasn't about to abandon them to whoever picked through the wrec

Sable's POVThe wind barely slowed him. Bastian's fist caught me across the jaw before I could get my arms up properly, and the world tilted hard, stars bursting bright behind my eyes as I hit the ground a second time."Sable!" Ivy's scream came closer now, but still too far, blocked by wreckage and fighting and a battlefield that had turned into chaos nobody could fully navigate.I tasted blood, my whole skull ringing, and through the haze I saw Bastian step past me again, closer to Alaric now, close enough that this time nothing was going to stop him if I couldn't get up."Damnit," I gasped, forcing myself onto my hands and knees, every part of my body screaming that I had nothing left, that I'd already spent everything the storm demanded and there wasn't a scrap more to give.I looked at Alaric, still crumpled against the wall, his chest barely rising, his face pale as death in the flickering firelight. And I thought about what Yarrow said, about the bond, about intent, about how h

Sable's POVAlaric took another hit, staggering back, blood welling dark along his forearm where Bastian's claws had caught him. I tried to push myself up again, my legs refusing to cooperate, my whole body screaming that I'd already given everything it had to give."Get up," I whispered to myself, forcing my hands flat against the frozen ground. "Get up, get up….""Easy." Hands caught me under the arms, hauling me upright before I could collapse fully. I turned, expecting Ivy, and found instead a young enforcer I barely recognized, his face streaked with soot, his eyes wide with something between fear and awe."You did that," he said, glancing toward the wreckage around us, the frost still glittering faint under the firelight, the scorch marks where lightning had torn through Vaelor's advance. "That storm. That was you.""Doesn't matter right now," I gasped, my eyes still locked on Alaric, who'd taken another step back under the weight o

Sable's POVI woke up on a cot inside the main hall, sunlight streaming weak through tall windows, my whole body aching in ways I didn't have names for. For a second I couldn't remember where I was, and then the memories crashed back all at once, the storm, Bastian's fist, Alaric's hand gripping mine as darkness pulled me under."You're awake." Ivy's voice, close, relieved. She sat in a chair pulled up beside the cot, dark circles heavy under her eyes. "Thought you might sleep through the whole day.""How long was I out?""Six hours, perhaps." She helped me sit up slowly,my head swimming with the movement. "You scared the hell out of everyone, passing out like that. Alaric carried you in himself, wouldn't let anyone else touch you.""Is he alright?""Banged up. Exhausted. Alive, which is more than a lot of people can say this morning." Something in her voice went quiet on the last part, and my stomach dropped."How bad?"