My heart is so distended now, it sits like a stone over my chest, rising like a hunching creature ready to tear free.
But still, I try to fucking fight.
Because I will always fight for her. For as long as I can.
My entire body shakes, limbs numb, pain encompassing, but I force movement anyway, because I will not give up. I will not give in.
If this is the moment that I end, I will end with my fight for her.
As long as there is breath in my lungs and a heart in my chest, I will fight for her with everything that I am.
I growl, my throat tearing open with the determined sound and spilling out into the air, making birds explode from the trees.
With desperate struggle, I turn. Shove my knees beneath me. Pump my arms up, and then strain to reach Argo’s strap at the back of his neck. All of it a battle between life and death.
Do not give up. Do not give in.
Fight for her.
I pull myself up, head swimming, vision bolting, legs threatening to give out. But I clench my fists around the strap, and I fucking stand.
“Auren. Need—to get—to her,” I pant through gritted teeth.
Neck twisted around, Argo blinks at me, whining low in his throat. But stubborn perseverance hooks into my voice and yanks the resolution out. “I’m going to find her. Fucking get to her…”
The pain in my chest reaches a poisoned peak, and I suck in a thin breath that has my lungs ringing with warning that it might be my last one.
I can’t take in another. I try, but Ican’t.
Panic consumes. My eyes go wide and wild as black spots block my vision. The agony in my chest is about to burst my heart, and I know my fight doesn’t matter anyway becausethis is it—
And then, everything changes.
I’m suddenly hit. Not with pain, not with death. But withher.
Something shifts. Death pauses.
I suck in a breath, feeling her in my inhale.
It’s as if she’s standing right here next to me. No—even more than that.
It’s as if…
Her scent floods my air. I can taste her at the back of my tongue. Feel her warmth consuming me like a fire consumes a forest. It starts to eat up every toxic limb and rotten root that exists within me.
Her flame, her sun, it blazes. Delves into every crevice, burning away every pinch of polluted blood. It swarms around my near-bursting heart, and I feel her essence grab hold. Fist me in her light.
And then something deep inside of me suddenly…collides.
CHAPTER 3
SLADE
I know what this is.
I’m not sure exactlyhowI know, but an innate understanding fuses with my fraying consciousness.
I’m on my knees and heaving breath, my body trembling as an age-old magic floods through me. This is magic born when existence first bled into Annwyn. Magic that is rare and coveted and revered.
