"La-La, stop please, you're hurt!"

Leyla pushed Jara's arms away and ran for the balcony door. Guards scrambled to get out of her way. Asya was sobbing beside them calling for her brother. Leyla barely registered any of it. All she knew was that she had to get to Raphael.

He couldn't be dead. He couldn't.

Within moments she burst out of the Jade Palace. Up ahead, four guards were crowded beneath the ballroom balcony, their heads shaking in dismay.

"MOVE!" She screamed at them.

Red sand shifted beneath their feet as they parted to let her through. Zego's body was lying a few sword lengths away, his neck bent at an unnatural angle, his eyes wide open in death. As for Raphael...

Leyla knelt beside him on shaking knees. He had managed to protect his head upon impact and from the tracks in the sand it was obvious that he had rolled to this position on his side. She leaned forward, afraid what she would find when she checked for his breath. Suddenly his chest convulsed and blood seeped from his mouth. No. No. No! He was alive, but the blood signalled heavy internal injury. She had seen this in battle many times and knew he would be dead within moments. 

There was only one thing left to do.

"Guard the doors! Don't let anyone out of the Jade Palace, especially the Mahsap!"

The men ran to do her bidding while she took off in the opposite direction. Her hands were shaking, her wounds burning, but she pushed herself harder. Any second it would be too late. He can't die! Without hesitation, she broke through the wooden fence surrounding the Immortality Plant and dug her fingers into the soil underneath it. She needed to reach the bottom of the roots, but the soil was too hard to dig!  Blood trickled down her arms, dripping onto dark soil as Leyla called the Heat and pushed her hands deeper. The burning filled her arms, sweeping over her wounds, making her cry out in pain but she kept pushing until she found what she was looking for. The bulblike root firmly in her grasp, she yanked with all her might and ran.

Black dots swam across her vision and the sound of her pounding heart filled her head as she reached Raphael's listless body. She didn't know if he was still breathing, there was no time to check. Any moment a Ghost King would come to kill her - she had to save him first.  Squeezing the root with the last of her strength, she sucked the liquid into her mouth and pressed her lips over Raphael's.

His lips were freezing cold. His skin under her fingertips lifeless as she pushed the liquid into his mouth and tipped his head back, forcing him to swallow. Once done, she let go of him and tried to sit back, but her head spun and she lost her balance.

Hard sand hit the back of her head and Leyla blinked. Pain was exploding in ever part of her body and she could no longer feel her arms. She blinked, her eyes filling with the light of the three moons of Asch. From a distance she heard guards shouting, or was that Jara's voice? She couldn't understand any of it.

Then a shadow fell over her and she knew no more.