In the distance, a clock starts ticking, a brutal, erratic rhythm that matches the pulsing in my chest.
Somewhere in the smoke, Ezzy wails and the stone blade is heavy and cold in my grip.
But Talen’s hands are warm around mine.
“Don’t make me do this,”I beg, ash and salt flooding my mouth as tears stream down my face.“Please... don’t make me do this.”
His lips brush mine and for one shared breath, everything stops. The fire. The screaming. The whole burning world. There is only him—his heat, his body, the unbearable softness of his mouth against mine.
Then his grip tightens, and he pulls the blade forward.
My eyes fly open and I bolt upright.
Cold air tears into my lungs, too fast, too thin, everything in front of me blurs as my heart bashes against my ribs and I claw at the ground beneath me, trying to make sense of what’s real.
Moss. Stone. The clearing.
I’m in the clearing.
I’m still in the mountain clearing.
It’s okay. I’m okay. It’s over.
The frantic beating behind my ribs slowly starts to settle as my vision returns, and when I turn to the side, I realise everyone else is still here with me, sprawled on the ground.
But as I look back, my lungs stall as I find the Shaman crouched in front of me, her wrinkled face so close that, between the folds of her skin and the rolls of cloth wrapped around her, I can barely tell where one ends and the other begins.
“No bond,” she mutters, the smell of sulphur rolling off her breath as she shakes her head at me.
The words hit harder than the hallucinations, and I notice that her pupils have blown so wide there’s barely any colour left in them.
“What?” I demand.
She shakes her head again, faster this time. “You. Fire. No Bond. No. No. No.”
Inhaling, my lungs drag in air too fast to do anything useful, and I grab at her wrist before I can stop myself.
“What are you talking about?” The words come out cracked and desperate. “Tell me what’s happening. Is it over? Where’s Ahria? Has the Blood Moon finished?”
The Shaman jerks back, pacing away from me, all the while her head still shaking as she mutters the same words over and over.
“No bond.”
“Fire.”
“No bond.”
Sweat gathers at the back of my neck as the sun beats down relentlessly, and around me the others are still lying down, eyes closed, faces slack, still trapped somewhere inside themselves.
I don't understand. It's been hours. It should be night. Did I not bond? What's going on?
My gaze drops to my watch as the second hand ticks past twelve.
Just past midday.
The same as before.
No. That can’t be right. It doesn’t make sense. I lived an entire lifetime inside those visions.
