CHAPTER 223
Isabella tightened her grip on Sabrina's frail shoulders with an aching gentleness, her thumb brushing against the unhealed scar near the older woman's temple.
"You saved me. The pouch you gave me—everything you did—it worked. I'm safe. But look at you... what did they do to you?"
Sabrina let out a faint, reedy wheeze that sounded like a dying breath catching in a rusted pipe. A small, trembling smile tried to stretch across her cracked lips, but the movement caused a fresh trickle of dark blood to ooze from the corner of her mouth.
"The Goddess... be praised," Sabrina murmured, her glazed eyes straining to focus on Isabella's face, her hand weakly lifting a few inches before dropping uselessly back into the blood-stained snow.
