I count heartbeats, count breaths, moments of my remaining life, and then I run.
Not toward the light.
I dart to his left, certain the only reason he doesn’t catch me is because I surprised him.
“Azul!” I scream, focusing solely on reaching the eagle, desperately blocking out how quickly Antony adjusts his forward momentum and matches my footsteps.
My feet fly as I sprint across the rocky tunnel floor, my arms pumping, heart-thumping fear pouring energy into my muscles.
The blue eagle is only twenty paces away. At my cry, he launches himself toward me, wings spread, but he won’t be able to lift off the ground until I’m on his back. I can’t leap as high as Antony can.
Even when Azul is crouched, his back is too high up for me to easily reach.
Frantically, I scan the tunnel walls for a low enough ledge, a jutting rock, something—anything—that I can use as a springboard.
Desperately, I try to block out the rush of air behind me and the terrifying reality that no matter how fast Azul races toward me, no matter how fast I run, I won’t make it to the eagle in time.
Antony’s hands close around me, a crushing grip wrenching me so suddenly to a stop that he lifts me off my feet.
Azul skids to a halt, shrieking and flapping his wings, his glowing, red eyes wide and wild as I’m jerked away from him.
My legs and arms are still moving, slamming backward against Antony’s chest and thighs, kicking, elbowing, clawing my fingers around his bare arms, raking his skin, fighting as hard as I can.
With every kick, every struggle against hisgrip, I cling to the memory of these same arms wrapping around me as his lips collided with mine, stealing my breath, a thief of my heart.
“Antony!” I cry. “Fight for your life. Fight for your soul?—”
My cry strangles in my throat as his hand sweeps up my neck and closes around my jaw, pulling my head to the side, exposing my neck where the armor doesn’t protect me.
The touch of his fangs against my bare skin freezes every muscle in my body for fear I’ll rip my neck open with my struggle.
Opposite me, Azul shrieks, a deep, threatening sound, his wings spread, his focus on Antony, but he won’t be able to attack while Antony’s holding me so close.
The sudden slump of the mighty eagle’s wings to the tunnel floor crumples my heart.
A moment later, molten gold energy rushes up my right arm, the briefest flash, a warning that a blade vision is about to take over me, and for once…
I welcome it.
Because during a blade vision, my body may continue functioning in the present, but my mind goes elsewhere.
I don’t want to be here anymore.
Tears escape from my eyes as the blade vision snatches my consciousness away…
I stand in a field of snow, shivering violently. I’m not sure what I’m wearing, certain only that my feet are bare.
A jagged, dark-gray stone rests in the snow ahead of me, as high as my waist, with an inscription etched on its surface that’s too obscured by falling snow for me to read.
Fluttering at the top of the stone’s rough surface is a yellow ribbon, appearing caught in a groove, refusing to lift into the wind.
With every icy breath I take, my heart turns cold.
So cold.
An impossible winter grows within me…
I’m wrenched back to myself, inhaling the scent of dank rock, my ears filling with Azul’s desolate cry, followed by Antony’s crooning voice at my ear.
