Dante took her arm gently. "Look at me. Delilah. I'm not going to let you die."
Her breathing was coming in sharp bursts. "I - she's a monster - her venom -"
"We don't know how much venom she injected into you, or what it will do. Now take deep breaths. Count to ten with each breath. You need to slow your heart rate or the venom will spread faster."
He scooped her up into his arms, grunting in pain, and carried her into a patch of shade caused by a mound of sand. "Keep your arm below your heart level. I'm going to make a splint."
He unwrapped his satchel while Delilah tried and failed to calm down. With every beat of her heart, the pain seemed to spread.
Dying. Death was not a factor she incorporated into her schemes - she could not die until she'd achieved her goal. Death had seemed so impossible, so far away, to her before. With her fighting skills and training, she'd felt invincible. This was jarring - this ruined everything. She couldn't die as a nameless, worthless princess, to be forgotten by the world.
Dante gently cut through her sleeve, exposing the wound.
Her stomach churned at the sight of the two punctures and the mottled, angry purple and red flesh that surrounded it. Her arm felt numb, and terror seized her.
"Don't cut it off," she begged.
"I won't." He took a strip of fabric and tightly bound two sticks of firewood to her arm, immobilising it.
"I need antivenom," she said. "But there are no hospitals out here."
Dante released her arm and turned away from her while he probed his side through a rip in his shirt.
She narrowed her eyes. "She bit you, too."
"No, it's just a scratch."
"I don't believe you." Something about his voice...
"I'm fine. Come on. We should keep moving - Terra is known for its medicine and knowledge."
"I can't travel like this!" She felt her voice rising into hysteria.
"We can't stay here." Dante rounded on her, his own blood shining on his fingertips. "That monster will find us - or the soldiers will. If we stay on the move we might run into villages where we can get help. So walk. Now."
Glaring, she struggled to her feet, sheathing her sword and grabbing her bag. "Don't speak that way to a dying girl."
"Shut it, Coppin. Save your energy for walking."
"I'll haunt you," she warned, but began to stumble after him, her left arm hanging uselessly by her side and throbbing viciously. Already she felt very weak, and it frightened her.
"I don't doubt that you will. But the way I see it, there are two ways this can pan out: either you'll die within an hour no matter what we do, or you live, which means the venom spreads slowly and we have time to find help."
"My arm's swelling up," she said, her voice more high-pitched than she'd ever heard it. Her treacherous heart picked up speed again, as if it wanted her dead.
The pain burned. She hardly noticed the sun, the discomfort of struggling north through the desert. Dante pointed out the sea to her, but she just stared at it blankly, overwhelmed with the idea of her imminent demise.
"I didn't want to die like this." She stumbled and he caught her, steadying her while she clutched him with her good arm.
"You are not dead yet," Dante snarled in her face. "A soldier that convinces himself he'll die on the battlefield usually does. There will be a cure in Terra. Come on - we're not that far."
The dunes ended and they walked through rocky land dotted with shrubs, spiny cacti and hardy trees. Every noise boomed in her ears. She started to feel sick and shaky, her stomach doing somersaults. Only her tight grip on Dante's arm kept her moving forwards, and he occasionally touched her back, urging her on, never telling her to let go.
They veered closer to the Landian Sea, and soon the beaches turned into soaring cliffs. They walked along the top of one as the gorge formed, the sea turning into the Landian River that fed it.
There it was - Terra, a large landmass of lush green, on the opposite cliff. So close. So impossibly far away.
Delilah's knees started to buckle. Her head was spinning.
"Don't you dare fall," Dante said.
She clung to his low voice, and to her surprise drew strength from some hidden reserve. She forced herself to straighten. To take a shaky step. Then another.
"That's it."
She gave a weak chuckle. "Dante Vallahan, Valian King, encouraging a Pelenan Princess to keep going!"
"Yes. It won't be very far now. There's a Pelenan bridge up ahead."
Was it her imagination, or was his skin greyish, covered with a sheen of sweat? Her eyesight seemed to be blurring. She expected mirages next.
An unstable-looking bridge came into view, and Delilah let out a groan at the sight of it. It was made of ropes, with wooden planks and pegs staked deep into the earth on either side. A gust of wind ripped between the sheer rock walls and it swayed.
"I can't cross that," she said.
"It's our only hope. Come on." Dante led the way, and she followed warily.
Gripping a rope, she edged away from the cliff edge. A dizzying drop loomed below, the river a mere trickle at the bottom.
Another gale hit the bridge and it creaked wildly. She faltered, the rope cutting into her hand.
A cure. Life. Life beckoned on the other side.
Delilah forced herself to keep going as Dante turned and nodded encouragingly.
"In the name of King Gaol of Pelenu, I order you to halt!" cried a young male voice.
Delilah whirled around, and nearly fell off the bridge in shock.
A blond man her own age stood on the cliff, a white horse beside him pawing the earth. He had a handsome, aristocratic face with a long, thin nose and incredible blue eyes, his hair ruffled in the wind, and he held a sword.
The Silver Knight.
Finias.
Dante gave a snarl of annoyance, his sword whining above the wind as he unsheathed it and made to storm towards the threat.
Finias's wide blue eyes fixed on her. "Lila?" he breathed, incredulous and a little hurt. "So it is true. The King of Vale has ensnared you with his tricks. Lila, don't listen to him."
He took a step onto the bridge and Delilah unsheathed her sword almost without thinking. Dull, hot fury pounded at her temples.
"Stay away from me, Finias," she warned, but a surge of sickness made her voice sound weak and frail.
Dante was frowning at her.
"Sweetheart," Finias breathed, looking truly wounded now. "Please come with me. Let me kill the King. We can be married, just like we were supposed to - you're my betrothed. Please. I lo-"
With an animalistic snarl, Delilah launched herself at him. Anything - she'd do anything to stop him from completing that sentence.
Startled, he brought his sword up to clash against hers. She darted back and lunged in with a vicious stab, but he easily deflected that, too.
"I'm not going to hurt you," the Silver Knight breathed.
"Good - that'll make it easier for me to kill you," she spat, but her left arm was weak and useless, and she had no strength. None at all. There was nothing left but the dark emotions that writhed in her rotten husk of a heart, demanding that she inflict pain on this pure, good young man who served those she hated - who had once promised to protect her from harm.
Dante dragged her away from Finias. "If he's not going to hurt you, we have to run!" he bellowed in her ear.
Reluctantly, Delilah let him pull her along the bridge. She sheathed her sword and they broke into a sprint. The wind roared and battered at their clothes.
Nothing could block out Finias's anguished cry. "Delilah!" It echoed through the gorge but they didn't slow down.
I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Finias, that hated part of her sobbed inside. She tried to push it away, to smother it in darkness.
The entire bridge trembled, throwing them onto their hands and knees. Delilah screamed, gripping the wood below her. The bottom of the ravine swayed, sending her dizzy.
Bile surged up her throat - and she vomited over the edge of the bridge, into the ravine.
Dante swore, his sharp gaze scanning the way ahead. "A rope has snapped! Hurry!"
The bridge was trembling, threatening to buckle entirely under their weight as they ran. The boards shuddered and the entire structure of the bridge began to warp, twisting, narrowing so it was getting harder and harder to force their way across -
Finias let loose another cry, but they'd already slammed onto their knees on Terran soil.
Just as the ropes on either side of them snapped away from the pegs, and the bridge fell. Her betrothed couldn't reach them now.
Delilah turned and saw the bridge disappearing as it fell on their end, finally thudding against the Pelenan cliff face where Finias was a tiny figure mounting his horse.
Delilah crawled through grass, wanting to get away from the gap as fast as she could. Her body was burning, her blood on fire with the venom. She couldn't breathe.
She lifted a heavy head just in time to see Dante vomiting, his entire body wracked with shudders, one hand braced on a tree. His face really was grey, his lips colourless, and his hands trembled, the other going to the wound at his side.
Horror swamped Delilah as she slumped on her front. Shahmaran had bitten him. He'd lied.
She watched him crumple in a dead faint like a marionette whose strings had been cut. How would they get to a hospital now?
It felt like her heart was beating slower, every pump of blood sending a new wave of pain through her skin.
She pressed her face against the ground, breathing in moist soil and the sharp smell of growing grass.
The earth was shaking. She used the last of her strength to lift her head, saw a forest of horse's legs, before the world went black.