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Arran ought to understand more than anyone. He’d told me again and again to do my duty to Annwyn. To be the queen I was meant to be.
Was this the best I could do?
Ineffectual? Absent?
I swiped a dagger from my belt. I needed to stab something—someone. I needed to grind down the sharp edges within me before they sliced me to bits from the inside out—
The dagger fell from my hand, my entire arm seizing in pain.
I could hardly see the attacker pressing me down to the ground, wrenching my arm backward. I forced my eyes open, forced myself to see—
All the air left my body.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fight.
It had me.
The gaping black hole that should have been a mouth, the soulless eyes…
I was so cold. It had my arm. Then my shoulder. Forcing my head back.
Cold like I’d never felt before.Reaching inside of me, reaching for my magic.
No, that wasn’t right.
I had felt this before. In that realm of cold, dark death.
I tried to throw my weight backward. It wasn’t large. I outweighed it easily. If I could get it off balance, I could roll away.
But it was strong. So much stronger than me.
Stronger than it should have been.
I couldn’t get away. The reality dawned on me suddenly.
I wouldn’t win a physical fight.
Inside me, my magic flared to life.
No, no. Don’t take me away.
But that ember of power didn’t care about my feelings. All that mattered was survival. Getting away from this horrible, undead thing, even if it meant going into the void, to the Ancestors only knew where.
The monster gnashed its jaws, lunging for my throat.
The tingling began in my fingers, the void calling to me. Part of my being, deep inside, yawned awake—excited. Desperate to see that swirling darkness again, to become a part of it.
Just like that fountain, swirling with ash, I felt myself start to become the threads of the universe.
Unspool. Break apart.
Make anew.
But a tether snapped me back.
A painful, sharp pain in the center of my chest—like I was being cleaved in two.
The monster had killed me. It was ripping me apart.
