Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ash
The world returned in pieces. Sound first, then pain. Like the darkness hadn’t released me so much as it discarded me. Spat on me.
My awareness seeped through to reality like water through the cracks. And I was acutely aware that everything felt scorched and charred to the point of living up to my namesake. Ash. My veins throbbed, feeling as though I had no blood in them, instead the friction was making me wish I hadn’t woken.
This was worse than waking from the sleeping curse, which felt like a lifting haze that left a visceral ache in its wake.
Except when I looked up, my mind blanked.
Fallyn.
Her features were softened by the flickering torchlight. That amber and gardenia scent was still notable even through the damp, moldy surroundings, and her warmth seeped into me. Thawed me.
She was exhausted and dirty, her eyes fallen shut.
Her hair created a curtain around us, shrinking the world until only the two of us remained.
Her hand twined in my own hair, as if she’d feared my disappearing in front of her, even as her strength had deserted her.
We weren’t trapped underground in a forgotten temple. We just were.
I should be dead. I shuddered at the memory of the poison’s burn, the dissent into darkness. I remembered begging her to run, before it got her too.
Something twisted deep in my gut like a blow. Gratitude. Shock. Something unfamiliar had that my chest aching.
Then there was no pain. Had I been conscious, I would have assumed I’d died.
And I would have. Had she not emptied herself to keep me here.
I stared up at her, throat tight. For a long moment I did nothing but stare at her, enraptured.
Why? I’d been so many things to her, not one of them worthy of her mercy.
Yet here she was, clinging to me, protecting me even under the spell of exhaustion.
Nobody had ever stayed for me. Not even my supposed family.
Another bitter laugh. I couldn’t even say I blamed them.
Everything I’d ever loved turned to ash in my mouth, and she still reached into the shadows and pulled me from them.
She risked everything to save my life, even when I begged her to run.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
A bitter laugh tried to rise but sharply died in my throat, breaking into something softer. More strangled.
“You foolish girl,” I murmured to her, my voice raspy and raw.
“What have you done to me?” My hand betrayed me, reaching up to tuck her raven hair behind her ear, away from her heart-shaped face.
Her skin was pale as marble, cool, clammy, and I found my heart rate picking up until my fingers found her pulse, thin and thready. But there.
Something in me shifted as I stared at her. Something that hurt. Something loud. Insistent. Something I couldn’t kill. It was my ruin, her name was Fallyn Ravenshade, and she would haunt me until the very end of my existence.
And she would have been better off had she let me die.
Because I would haunt her in turn.