I can touch her.
I can smell her.
But…how’s that possible?
The moment that thought passes my mind, something in her hazel eyes flickers. It hits me like a bucket of cold water.
I let go of her hands, and step back.
“What are you?” I choke the words out. “You’re not Fane.”
The forest presses onto me. The pressure in my chest builds.
Fane—or whoever wears her skin—smiles at me. It’s a twisted kind of smile that contorts my beautiful sister’s face into something wicked.
I act on instinct.
With a blink of an eye, I slam one of my blades into this monster’s stomach. Fane’s eyes go wide, her jaw slack.
She looks at me as if she didn’t expect me to strike.
“Phoenix.” She breathes out the words.
A small line of blood trickles out the side of her mouth.
“Fane—”
I press my hands over the wound, trying to stop the blood.
This isn’t real.
This can’t be real.
Why does it feel so real?
“No, no, no! Fane, stay with me?—.”
Fane grabs my shoulder, trying to keep herself from falling. I bear her weight, my hands trembling. “No wonder you didn’t save us.”
Oh gods, what have I done?
The scent of blood is lodged at the back of my throat. My stomach swirls.
Fane coughs blood, and falls to her knees. I fall with her, my blade still buried inside her.
“Fane, no—please, no,” I cry out. “I tried to look for you.”
“Liar,” she whispers right into my face. We’re face-to-face. Her breath skitters over my cheeks when she speaks. “Everything, everyone you touch turns to ash. You chose not to save us.”
The dark forest looming around us closes in. A sob tears out of me right as Fane’s eyes close and her body in my arms goes cold. I lean over her and sob.
The sound of rushing water comes back. It’s louder than before. No. Wait.
It’s not rushing water?—
I lift my head and am blinded by lights. Trying to orient myself, I look around. Hard, dirty ground. A pile of weapons. Bodies on top of them. Tall stone walls with—tribunes on top, full of people?
I look down in my lap. Fane’s body is gone. My blades are still in my hands, but they’re not bloody.
