34. Ryewood
Ryewood
Everything is wrong.
There are trees where there shouldn’t be, stones split open like they’ve been torn apart from below, people screaming, and Gemma.
Gemma isn’t here.
She was right beside me. I grabbed for her, but I caught only her sleeve, right before the blast tore through us. The fabric tore in my hands, and then she was gone.
I force myself up. My shoulder screams. I don’t care.
“GEMMA!” I scream.
But she’s not there. There’s just chaos, just trees and rubble and nobles scattered across churned earth.
I stumble forward, climbing over roots, shoving past debris. My legs feel wrong, like they’re too slow, too heavy, not listening.
Where is she? Where is she? Where—
I can’t breathe. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard, but the air won’t come. My lungs are seizing, burning.
“GEMMA!”
My voice breaks, and my legs are shaking. I stumble over a root that shouldn’t exist, that’s as thick as my leg.
Not her. Please. Not her. Anyone but her.
I stagger, my vision narrowing.
“Rye!”
The voice barely registers. Everything is muffled, distant, like I’m underwater.
“RYE!”
Hands grip my shoulders. Grier’s face swims into view. There’s blood on his temple, and his eyes are wild. I’ve never seen him look like that. Never seen—
I can’t think about this. I can’t think about anything except—
“Where is she?” The words tear out of me. “Grier—where is she?”
“Did he see where she went?”
“I don’t know!” I’m shouting. I can’t stop shouting. “She was right there. She was right next to me, and then—I tried to hold on—I tried—”
I feel it again, the sleeve ripping, and her slipping away from me. My hands are shaking. Everything is shaking. The world is tilting, and I can’t make it stop.
“I can’t—” I gasp for air, but it won’t come. “I can’t breathe—Grier, I can’t—”
“Rye.” His hands tighten on my shoulders. “Rye, look at me.”
The edges of my vision go dark. My heart is going to explode. I’m going to die right here without finding her—
“LOOK AT ME.”
He cups the back of my neck, forcing my eyes on his face.
“Breathe.” His voice cuts through the static in my head. “In. Now.”
I try. It shudders, then catches.
“Again. Slower.”
I pull in another breath that scrapes through my lungs like broken glass. The darkness recedes, just slightly.
“She was thrown north of us.” Grier’s voice is strained but steady. “We’ll find her.”
I nod. Try to speak, but nothing comes out.
We push into the destruction, climbing, crawling, and tearing through branches that feel strangely warm where they brush my skin. My palms are slick with sap until I catch the color. Red, I must be bleeding. I don’t stop.
“GEMMA! GEMMA!” My throat is shredding, and I can’t stop. Her name keeps tearing out of me like I have no control over it.
This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. I just found her. I just—we were just—
Something green cuts through the brown and gray. A flash of color through the branches—her emerald silk.
I lunge toward her, crashing through branches, tripping over roots.
She’s crumpled at the base of an oak, not moving. And there’s blood—too much blood—soaking through her side.
I drop to my knees. My hands won’t stop shaking, but I touch her anyway.
“Gemma.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Please.” I try.
The ground hums low, almost felt rather than heard.
It’s not an aftershock; it’s something deeper, something wrong.
Grier’s face drains of color. He looks at the ground, then back at me.
The earth shifts under my knees, and I pull her in close, locking my arms around her. It has to be enough this time.
The hum deepens before the ground splits open and gives way. Then we’re falling with soil and rock closing around us, and the light vanishes all at once.
I pull her into me, my arms caging her in, my body the only shield I have left. I failed her once tonight, and I won’t do it again.