Body ready to slam into the ground.
I brace myself.
But just before my inevitable crash, Argo dives down and catches me with his feet, talons circling around my arm and leg. I wince from the pressure, but within seconds, he’s dropping me again, and I thud against solid ground, rolling and skidding across wet grass and spongy soil before coming to a stop.
I land half-slopped into a bog, my entire right side drenched in muddy water.
The pain wants to debilitate me, wants to keep me hostage, but I fight past it. Remind myself of what I’ve endured at the hands of my father.
Move.
Move move move—
A roar rips from my lips as I fight against the anguish for control of my body. Mud threatens my airway, but I command my body to obey anyway. Reaching one arm up, I grip hold of the grass, straining as I pull myself up.
The pain is all-consuming, my vision still stained with spills of ink, but somehow, I get my knees under me and manage to crawl out of the muck, grip by grip. Then I drop and roll onto my back, dripping in sweat, shaking all over, ready to fucking puke.
I move my hands down and rip open my coat and leather jerkin, exposing my chest. My heart looks like it’s ready to explode. Like a massive blister full of pus, except it’s singed brown and leaking roots of black.
Not fucking good.
I can see every vein that leads out of it pulsing, pumping more poison into my system. Instead of the rotted lines staying contained to my upper chest and arms, I’m absolutely covered in them, breaching down my stomach and hands, even blackening my fingernails.
I’m riddled with so many that it doesn’t even look real.
Argo nudges me on the arm, making distressed noises low in his throat. He lowers himself, urging me to get up, so I lift my hand and reach the strap around his neck.
But before I can attempt to pull myself onto his back, my body convulses. I lurch backward, breath stolen from me as the torment reaches a crescendo.
And I know.
This is it. I’m dying.
But my life doesn’t flash before my eyes. She does.
Auren floods into me, memories consuming me entirely. There aren’t enough, not nearly enough. But I see them. Feel them. Hear them.
The little moments. Like when I’d watch her without her even realizing it. Taking in the side of her face while she ate, watching her walk up the stairs, seeing her smile at something Judd said. It’s the sound of her voice as she told me her truths. The scent of her hair when she laid upon my chest.
It’s the big moments too, when she was entirely too magnificent for this world. When she made everyone else seem small and dull in comparison. Her vengeance and her strength and her kindness and her light.
I was always meant to find her. To see her.
This can’t be it.
This can’t be all.
A rasping breath cuts out of me, tines dragging against my ribs with a clatter. “Auren,” I gasp out. As if she can hear me. As if I can say everything I need to say.
Moisture gathers at the corners of my eyes, shedding the misery of my failure. Of everything I’ll never get to see her do. The little and big moments I’ll miss. I wanted them all. I wanted to see and experience and have all of her, forever.
And now I can’t.
Misery drenches me, while rot starts gushing into the ground. Argo whines. My heart slogs.
I stare up at the swarm of branches from the twist-root trees, slunk in this bog, while my heart pumps out a poison that’s killing me.
I choke as it reaches my lungs and infects my breath.
