“Wake up.”
I slice.
Fierce, fiery pain snaps through my collarbone, snatching my breath, filling my eyes with tears quick to spill down my cheeks.
This horrid reality doesn’t dissolve. I don’t wake in sweaty sheets with a scream splintering my throat.
I let the hardening bloom fall from my hand and grab another. Tilt the head.
“Wake up.”
Another blow of pain flays me, pouring fire through my veins as I heave breath into my staggering lungs. I don’t wait for the pain to ebb before I snatch the biggest bloom, gather the petals, and set the blade against its thick, woody stem.
“Wake up!” I snarl, andslice—once, twice, three times before I finally sever the head, releasing a tortured wail as more tears spill. The bloom tumbles from my fingers. Thumps to the soil.
Still, this nightmare continues to pin me down with its crushing might.
“Please wake up …”
A blow of humid air dusts the side of my face from the waterfall’s spray, and my gaze drifts to the right. To the ledgehefell over, the frothy nether that swallowed him in a misty gulp lit by a beam of sunlight breaking through the canopy, creating prisms of color that are almostinviting.
I stare, mesmerized by the lure of their intoxicating beauty. Like a softhello. Come look at me. Touch me.
Play with me.
A strange yearning fills me, and I become bluntly aware that this is one of those horrific nightmares where the only way to jerk awake and escape … is to fall.
To follow him.
Relief surges through my veins, and I let the blade slip from my hand, necklace clattering to the dirt as I push to a stand. I step closer to the ledge, into the spill of sunlight that bathes my skin with its lustrous warmth, caressed by another flurry of misty wind.
I imagine somebody whispering for me to wake up, becoming more insistent, buffeting me with a demand, thenscreaming.Imagine somebody shaking me so hard I jolt back to the now, nestled in a bed of inky sheets in a room that’s all curved edges and sun-soaked windows, packed full of a botanical scent.
Those oily perusals scribble across my skin in erratic motions …
Another step forward.
The tips of my toes tingle, the sensation traveling through the arches of my feet, up my legs and spine, making me shiver. My hair—a tangle of thick, iridescent ropes—is tossed around my shoulders by the thunderous, billowing spray rushing up to meet me.
Don’t cry …
“Wake up,” I whisper, the words lost against the roaring might of the water heaving over the edge.
My eyes drift shut, and I tease my toes farther forward—
The jarring squawk of a krah crackles down from above, followed by a shrill squeal.
I whip around, attention delving through the jungle’s gloomy guts to where a sprite is spiraling toward the ground, propelled by its single wing hanging at an odd angle. Another chases, half the size and making twice the sound.
There’s a soft thump as the injured one plunges into the underbrush, chased more delicately by the child—stealing nervous glances at her surroundings before she flutters beneath a silver-blue leaf in the same vicinity.
Irilak stretch from their darker pockets of shade, curling around tree trunks and waxy-looking shrubs, sniffing in the direction of the fallen meal. A rattling symphony shakes the silence, and my heart dives, thoughts churning.
Like a tidal pool gushing full of inky water, the Irilak converge on the helpless sprites.
Something inside mesnaps.
“Stop!”
