The world dissolved before I even realized I was slipping under.
One moment the medical wing was spinning around me, Talon’s hands on my shoulders, the shard pulsing like a second heartbeat. The next, the ground vanished and I dropped into a weightless silence so absolute it stole the breath from my lungs. My mark burned as if molten metal had been poured into my skin. The pain blurred into brightness. The brightness blurred into nothing.
Then nothing opened its eyes.
I stood on a flat plane of silver mist that stretched in every direction. No sky. No horizon. No sound. Just quiet. Deep and endless. The kind of quiet that made you feel like your heartbeat was too loud. Like you were too loud. Like you were not supposed to be here.
The mist curled around my ankles, cool and soft. I took
