I blink, shaking my head.
“No,” I breathe. It’s just another nightmare. Just another cruel trick of the mind.
“Look at me, Serena. Look at me. Feel me. I’m here, you’re here.” He takes my hand and places it over his heart. “You’re alive. This isreal.”
His chest pulses beneath my palm—all the evidence I need packed into that violent, sporadic heartbeat. I glance up into warm brown eyes that threaten to melt me down to nothing.
“Zadyn?”
His shoulders relax, but his grip on me doesn’t, not even when I sag in his arms, taking us both down to our knees.
He’s here. This is real. And I’m not dead.
“Hey,” he whispers, lowering his face to mine.
“How are you here?” I sob, taking him in through blurry eyes, gripping him by the arms, the shoulders, the face to make sure he’s real, that this isn’t my mind playing nasty tricks on me.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re safe, that’s all I care about.”
Another flood of memories hits me, threatening to drown me like a tsunami. Images of me crying over Zadyn’s dead body. Images of Jace slain on a battlefield.
I slam my fists into his chest and he stumbles back, shocked. “You should have let me die. I was supposed to die!”
“Don’t you dare say that,” he hisses, gripping the back of my neck with startling ferocity.
“You shouldn’t be here. If he finds you?—”
I start to hyperventilate, sucking down shallow breaths, the tightness in my throat becoming unbearable.
“Serena, breathe. Hey, hey, hey. Focus on me. I’m here. I’m notgoing anywhere. I’m here,” he repeats, nodding and holding my gaze until my breathing slows and I regain control of my muscles.
“I know what you’ve been through has been traumatic, but right now I need you to come back to me. I need you to fight your way out of that darkness and come back to me. Just for a little while, I need you to fight. Alright?” Zadyn’s stare is the only thing holding me together.
I nod numbly, straining to find myself beneath the ashes. Beneath the dirt and worms and decay. Beneath the rot.
I’m here!a voice inside me screams.I’m here, let me out.
I reach for her.
And when our hands meet, a fire ignites.
Zadyn pulls me into his arms, and I breathe him in, squeezing tight enough to crack his ribs.
Scuffed black boots step into my line of vision, stopping a few feet away. I follow the length of them up two long legs, stopping when I reach a set of cutting golden eyes.
He stands there unmoving, his expression guarded.
Zadyn tracks my gaze past his shoulder.
The boots step closer. And I stop breathing again.
“Hello, little witch.”
18
JACE
Ifeel such loathsome envy as I stare at them.
