There was no pulse.
“Talia?” My voice cracked. I yanked her blanket back fully, exposing her small frame, stiff and too still. Her lips were blue, and her eyes were closed peacefully, as if she’d simply drifted into a dream she never woke from. The faintest smile was on her face.
Panic swelled in my chest.
“Karina!” I screamed. “Someone! I need help!”
Within moments, footsteps echoed down the hall. Karina burst through the door, followed closely by two healers. I stumbled backward as they rushed in. I couldn’t look at her anymore. My sweet, broken Talia—who painted flowers on dresser drawers and molded whimsical characters from clay—was gone.
One healer pulled out a device of some kind and scanned it over her lifeless body. His expression was blank, clinical. After several moments, he spoke to his colleague, who was standing by, notepad in hand.
“Heart attack.”
I blinked, stunned.
“A heart attack? She’s thirteen.”
“Fate is mysterious,” the healer said quietly, “and not to be questioned.”
I recoiled as if slapped. She was only thirteen—the same age as Alona. So young and innocent. I wanted to scream, to rip his words from the air and shove them back down his throat. But all I could do was stand there, chest heaving, trembling.
I watched silently as they took Talia’s body away. They had put her body on a stretcher and placed a white sheet atop her still body. It had been respectful, and that tempered my rage—but only slightly.
I was left alone in a room that felt far too large and far too quiet.
I didn’t go to breakfast that morning. My appetite had vanished, and I didn’t want to hear her name called out.
What even was the point of eating? What was the purpose of keeping my body on the precipice of life, when the edge of oblivion was so near? I was destined to die here, a fate I was no longer running from. I had accepted it fully.
Instead of eating, I wandered through the corridors until my feet brought me to Rowan’s door. I hesitated only a moment before I knocked.
The door opened a crack.
“Mavis?” Rowan’s eyes squinted at the light, and his voice was sleep-ridden.
I didn’t wait for an invitation—I pushed past him and into his quarters. I was beyond caring who saw.
“Where have you been for the last few days?” I asked, my voice brittle.
He had been absent for the past two days—no warning issued and no reason given. Typical Rowan.
He shut the door softly behind me. “I’ve been busy.”
I turned on him, anger and grief a volatile mix in my chest. “Of course. You can never give a detailed answer, can you? Only surface-level ones. Gods forbid anyone ever actually gets to know you.”
I let out a choked laugh. I felt the tears wanting to spring free, burning behind my eyes. But I was too scared to let them flow for fear of drowning in them.
His jaw tightened. “Is this really about my being gone, or did something else happen?”
I opened my mouth to speak—but the words dissolved. My knees buckled, and I broke. A raw sob escaped as my entire body folded in on itself.
“I found her,” I cried out, tears streaking down my face. “Talia. I woke up this morning, and she was just—gone.”
Rowan crossed the space between us in two strides and pulled me into his arms. I collapsed against his chest, gasping through the storm of my grief. His hands steadied me, one cradling the back of my head, the other wrapped tightly around my back.
“I didn’t want to be alone,” I whispered brokenly. “I didn’t come here to fight.”
He paused. “Did you come here to forget?”
