Hearing Lysandra's voice, the young man tried to move. His hand, encased in a studded leather glove, reached for the sword lying not far away, but he had already used up all his strength. All he could do was slowly turn his head and look at Lysandra.
The young man's eyes were golden-red, sharp as a predatory eagle's, but now they were dimmed by pain.
"Go..." the young man hissed hoarsely, revealing fangs slightly sharper than those of an ordinary human or god. "Don't come any closer."
"Y-you're bleeding so badly. Your wound... that's high-level dark magic. If it isn't closed right away, you'll bleed out in a matter of minutes," Lysandra said in a panic, her healer's instincts taking over her fear.
"I said go! You... a god. Your holy scent is disgusting." The young man turned his face away, still trying to reach his sword.
"What holy scent? I'm covered in mud and blood. And you're in this condition, yet you still have time to worry about race?" Lysandra shot back without thinking, her voice rising with frustration. She was used to dealing with her father's stubborn nature, and now she had to deal with the stubbornness of a dying stranger.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of... the dark race," the young man moaned, followed by another cough of black blood. His body convulsed for a moment.
"The dark race?" Lysandra gasped. She studied the faint aura radiating from the young man's body. Sure enough, it was a dense aura completely opposite to her life energy. The eternal enemies of the divine clan. Her father, Aetherion, had always drilled into her that the dark race was a group of heartless monsters that had to be exterminated without hesitation.
"Great," Lysandra cursed herself. "I fell into a deadly forest, broke my wings, and now I've run into a demon from the enemy clan. Fate really hates me, huh?"
"If you want to kill me... do it now. Don't waste your breath," the young man challenged, staring at Lysandra with the last remnants of his pride.
"Kill you? Why would I waste what little strength I have left killing someone who's going to die on his own in five minutes anyway?" Lysandra glared back at him irritably. "Listen, I don't care whether you're a god, a demon, or even a tree spirit. You need help."
"Don't touch me!" The young man growled angrily when Lysandra took a step forward. "You don't know what you're dealing with, Princess."
"And you don't know who you're talking to either!" Lysandra shot back, stopping exactly one meter from the young man's body.
The two of them stared each other down in the dim forest. Two gravely wounded figures from two opposing worlds.
"I carry a curse," Lysandra finally said, her voice lowering until it sounded desperate and exhausted. "Anyone I touch feels excruciating pain, as if their life is being forcibly ripped away. That's why I was exiled. That's why I ended up in this cursed place."
The young man fell silent, his golden-red eyes fixed on Lysandra's face, covered in dust and tearstains. For some reason, something in the desperation of Lysandra's voice touched a hidden part of his mind.
"So... if I heal you with my magic without touching you, the magic in this place will cancel out my spell. But if I touch you directly to channel healing magic into you... my curse might kill you even faster," Lysandra continued, her voice trembling. She lowered her head and stared at her own palms with loathing. "I'm useless. I can't even save an enemy."
The young man closed his eyes, enduring the waves of pain from the slash across his chest. "You really are an idiot. Why are you... crying over your own enemy?"
"Because I know what it feels like to suffer alone with no one willing to help!" Lysandra shouted, tears spilling down her face again. "I know what it's like to be ignored because people are afraid of me! I don't want to become like them!"
Silence fell. The only sound was the young man's increasingly faint, raspy breathing.
"I'll... just look for some herbs around here. This forest has to have leaves that can help clot your blood," Lysandra murmured in a panic, roughly wiping away her tears as she prepared to turn around. "Hang on for a little while. Don't die yet. Understand?"
"Don't bother..." the young man whispered. "It won't do any good."
"It has to! I won't let you die!"
Just as Lysandra turned her body to search for leaves nearby, something startling happened.
The young man's large hand, smeared with black blood and covered by a tattered leather glove, suddenly shot forward with the last of his strength and clamped tightly around Lysandra's ankle.
Lysandra froze instantly. It felt as though her blood had stopped flowing. Her eyes widened as she stared at the hand gripping her leg. Her breath caught in her throat.
She squeezed her eyes shut, her entire body tensing as she braced herself to hear a deafening scream of pain. She prepared to see the young man's body burn beneath her deadly curse.
But... the scream never came.
There was only the heavy breathing of the blue-black-haired young man, who now stared at his own hand touching Lysandra with an unreadable expression.