65. AURELIA

Chapter sixty-five

AURELIA

I was devastated by the results. It didn't work. Why didn't it work? Damian came over to hold me in his arms. His skin also turned a sickly gray color. Different purple blisters and boils emerged on his skin like disfigured bruises.

My eyes teared up as I watched everyone slowly fade away in an instant disease from what we touched on the ground. We weren't safe anywhere. There was no one that could save us.

He held me, trying to comfort me. A tear trickled down his cheek, landing on my face, leading down as if it was mine all along.

"You have connected with me," I said, whimpering as our bodies became soaked in pain and stings, remembering the beauty that marked the Celestials on my fingertips.

The pain that flamed our skin was merging, disintegrating into nothingness, combining with the diseased soil beneath us. Our filth and plague were fusing as one.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Your tears. You've connected with me."

"The tears!" he exclaimed, hope straining his voice.

"What do you mean?"

"The tale. It's not the powers of the Scalebound. It's the tears," he said. " Yamceeii 1 axuaeii 2 uama 3 ."

"Oh, my scales, you're brilliant. Clementine, Loker, Luella!" I cried, standing up from Damian's arms, and looking for where to find them. My voice was hoarse and dry, crackling with each word straining through my throat. My body ached, the skin plastered, withering and shriveling by the second. Bone protruded through the knuckles at my fingers, the skin tearing in unnatural ways. The veins dulled.

I had no energy, and I needed to do it quickly before we became just another scattered plagued object of the Deathlies home.

Nearing Loker and Luella, something seemed off. Their sobs cracked the sky like a bolt of lightning, watching each other wither away from the plague.

"Loker! Luella!" I yelled, attempting to catch their attention as Loker was over Luella's body.

Noise pounded above me. The dragons were still killing off the Deathlies one by one, not paying attention to us below. Fire fueled the air, creating almost fireworks with the sparks and flames charring anything being targeted. Their bodies, large in the sky, contouring it with the elements of water, thunder, shadows, and light burning through the haze.

I grabbed the vial necklace that I wore, the one that Cora had originally given me when she returned home only days prior. The thought of her name sent goosebumps down my skin, but she wasn't worth my energy anymore–especially these last precious moments of my death.

The coldness of the metal from the vial burned my tender fingers. I knew I was going to need it. I clicked the clasp open at the top, and I went up to Loker's face, grabbing a tear that streamed down his cheek. He looked confused at first, his eyebrows scrunched in uncertainty, but let me do it. His skin started to bubble and boil up, creating red and purple splotches. His eyes drooped in an unnatural sort of way.

I knelt to Luella. Something was severely wrong with her. She was choking up blood. Her gasps were weakened and her sobs were uncontrollable. My eyes widened in fear of what the reality was. She was going to die.

She lifted her chin up and blinked hard so I could also capture her tears. Seeing her gagging on her own blood made me tear up. There was a moment when I didn't think that I could move on. I wanted to stay and comfort her. Her skin was turning gray, with boils arising.

There was a rock beneath her. She had landed on a rock. Her small body was sputtering, going limp. "Luella. Stay with us." Her eyes flickered from side to side, going unconscious.

"Loker!" I screamed. He was right next to me, bending down to see Luella by his side.

"Go," he said, knowing that I had to do something with the tears to make it stop, to stop the disease before it killed us all. I still stood shocked, unwilling to move and to leave small Luella bleeding out on the jagged rock bigger than her small body.

"Where is Clemmy?" I quickly demanded, not knowing how much time we had left. I could already feel the disease and weakness take over my body.

"I… I don't know," stuttered Loker, putting his hands over his face. We were forced upon the disease when it wasn't even our choice.

"Damian!" I yelled, not sure if sound even came out of my throat. He was right behind me, looking to try to find her.

"Over there!" he responded, and we reluctantly started running across the blackened grass as quickly as possible, not wanting to abandon Luella, but having to end the Deathlies for the better of us all. Or else we would all be damned. Each step burned with pain. The blisters were already being created on my skin.

I blinked away my own tears, trying to swallow, but my esophagus didn't allow the movements. My throat was so dry, unable to function properly. My entire body was starting to break down.

We reached Clemmy, and her leg was swollen. Her kneecap was deformed in an abnormal way, with bone piercing through. She was wincing and crying. Her screeches filled the air from her pain.

"Clemmy!" Damian and I recalled at the same time. I couldn't look. "We need your tears," I tried to say calmly. She nodded, still wincing. I lifted the clear glass up to her face and saw a small trickle of water flow down her cheek and land in the vial.

"Damian," I started before he interrupted me.

"I'll help her," he said. I smiled slightly, knowing I had to leave to run to the center. I looked up in the sky to find some Deathlies coming our way. The darkness of disease already touched us, but if I could resist being torn to pieces, that would be great.

We were running out of time.

I turned to run, but Damian grabbed my arm and pulled me close to his body, knowing the circumstances. He kissed me, and then our foreheads leaned into each other. Our bodies were shaking from everything that was happening.

"Don't let me lose you. Not again," he said, making the water in my eyes trickle down further. Lifting the vial up to my cheek, I grasped my starry-nailed fingers tighter around the container, filling the remaining space in it with my own tears.

"My choice. Remember?" I said, thinking of his reminder he gave me not so long ago. "I care for you, Damian. Don't ever forget it," I said, taking in his soft brown eyes one last time.

I turned and ran toward the crater, with Deathlies following me.

1. Yamceeii (Yawm-say-ee): (Placed before the verb in a command)

2. Axuaeii (Ah-wah-ee): The verb to use

3. Uama (Wah-ma): Something to have/Theirs/Yours/His/Hers