The interior of the dragon's ribcage felt like a cathedral of bone. Evelyn had set up a makeshift operating table on a flat slab of ancient, fossilized stone. Around her, several jars glowed with a ghostly bioluminescence, casting long, dancing shadows against the white walls of the ribs.
In front of her, Alaric lay unconscious, his chest bared. The purple light from the Chimera heart was no longer rhythmic; it was erratic, pulsing like a trapped animal trying to claw its way out.
"I need to be fast," Evelyn whispered to herself, her fingers steady as she sharpened a scalpel made of obsidian.
She had managed to extract a pair of shimmering, translucent sacs from the remains of the Bog-Stalker—the preserved 'lungs' of a juvenile dragon that the creature had consumed decades ago. They were small, but they contained the necessary magic to filter the dense mana Alaric was now producing.
As she made the first incision, a cloud of violet steam hissed out of Alaric's chest. The heat was immense.
Suddenly, Alaric's eyes snapped open. He wasn't conscious, but his body was reacting to the trauma. He grabbed Evelyn's arm with a grip that could crush steel.
"Don't... touch... it..." he rumbled, his voice sounding like two grinding stones.
"Alaric, let go!" Evelyn gasped, reaching for a sedative vial. "If I don't do this, your human lungs will turn to ash from the inside out!"
She didn't wait for him to understand. She jammed the sedative into his neck and, while he was momentarily dazed, she plunged her hands into the opening of his chest. The process was gruesome—a delicate dance of stitching living tissue to ancient, magical organs. She wove her silver threads between the Chimera heart and the new dragon lungs, creating a bridge of mana.
Hours passed. The storm outside the marshes began to howl, but inside the ribs, the air finally began to cool. The violent pulsing in Alaric's chest slowed down into a deep, powerful thrum.
Evelyn slumped against the bone wall, her face pale and covered in Alaric's blood. She looked at her hands—they were stained, but they were victorious. She had done it.
Alaric's breathing changed. It was no longer the shallow, ragged gasp of a dying man. It was a long, deep draw of air that seemed to pull the very mist of the marsh into his body, exhaling it as pure, shimmering energy.
"Sleep now, my Paladin," Evelyn whispered, closing her eyes. "Tomorrow, you wake up as something even the Gods will fear."