My throat closed. A sob tore free.
“No...”
The entire side of his face fractured, flitting away like charred embers, catching the polar breeze whipping around us.
“Lucien!”
My fingernails clawed into him as his bodyunmadeitself—returning to dust like all the bones beneath us.
His arms began to fade, glowing sparks lifting free and dancing aimlessly around my head. His legs followed—dissolving into drifting particles of light and cinders.
“Stop it!” I hurled myself over him, trying to anchor all his pieces. “Stop it.Pleasestop it! You can’t die. You can’t!”
He didn’t obey me.
His body continued to unravel.
Piece by piece.
Fleck by fleck.
Every ashy fragment rising like a tiny sun.
I pressed my hands over his metal-trapped heart. “Stay. Stay with me. D-Don’t leave me—”
His torso hollowed beneath my palms.
My breath hitched as his face slowly vanished, breaking apart with shimmering shards...disappearing as if he’d been nothing more than a dream.
“NO!”
Lunging, I clutched what remained of him, catching flecks of swirling ash. They escaped through my fingers with mocking wisps of smoke.
His chest broke apart with a cloud of soot, revealing a charred heart as the vitalsync core fell to the ground, no longer supported by flesh or bone—
—his bodyexplodedwith a burst of light.
“No!”Glowing filaments swirled, trapping me in a cyclone as I scrambled after him, crawling, grasping.
“Come back! Lucien!”
The blizzard snatched him away.
Launching to my feet, I roared into the storm. “Give him back!”
The snow howled. The world froze.
And I couldn’t do it anymore.
I couldn’t be alone anymore.
Lost anymore.
Afraid anymore.
I’d told him I would chase him. And I would. Through death and nightmares—to the ends of the universe if necessary.
He’s mine.
