"How bad is it?" Mara asked, her voice tight as the van raced through the darkness.
I looked down at Azryth. He was unconscious now, barely breathing, the binding was going haywire, his pain and my panic feeding back on each other in a vicious cycle that made it hard to think.
The wound on his chest was spreading, black veins radiating outward from the impact site like cracks in glass.
"Bad," I said, my voice breaking. "Really bad."
Henrik was already pulling out medical supplies, but his expression was grim. "Necrotic poison specifically designed to destroy infernal essence, it's also meant to sever bindings and break the anchor between demon and vessel."
"Can you treat it?" I asked desperately.
"I can try to slow it down, but Riven, you need to understand, this poison is designed to be fatal, even for demon lords." He was already working, hands moving over the spreading darkness. "And if it breaks the binding before killing him…."
