Immortal Consequences(71)

Was she going crazy?

Nothing made sense anymore. Her consciousness slipped. Black splotches flooded her vision.

There was no time to think. There was only a blaring voice in the back of her mind telling her to escape, to find a way out, to run as fast as she could. And though she could no longer see the darkness that had attacked her, she could still feel it. Lurking just beyond what she could see, hovering just out of reach.

She started running.

Blackwood wasn’t far. She had only crossed through one door.

The familiar pull tugged inside her. She zigzagged through the cluster of trees, branches scraping her arms as she ran. Each cut sent a sharp pain through her body, but she didn’t care.

She just had to get back to Blackwood. She had to— Suddenly, the ground beneath her gave way. The world around her disappeared.

And then she was falling.

Falling…

Deeper and deeper, suspended in the darkness, swallowed by a vast nothingness.

Just when she thought she would live the rest of her existence in this perpetual state, falling into eternity—everything stilled.

Had she accidentally passed through another door?

She blinked, desperate to grasp anything about her surroundings, but everything was entropy and chaos. The world around her smelled like smoke and ash. An overwhelming darkness stifled her vision.

Wren felt it everywhere. That rotting, decaying thing consuming every inch of this land.

And then a horrible thought bounced through her mind.

The shadow.

It could be nearby. Waiting for her.

Wren tried to scream for help, but her voice sounded disembodied, as if it were floating above her and around her. As if the particles of her very soul were being ripped apart at the seams.

Something was changing inside her. Her atoms shifted. Her body twisted.

And then she felt it.

Everywhere. All at once. Consuming every inch of her body without remorse.

Pain.

31

August

He felt it instantly. An internal rupture. A cataclysmic shift.

August tore his promise to shreds. His word was meaningless now. There was only one thing that mattered.

She was the only thing that had ever mattered.

He called upon his spacial magic, mustering up all the energy inside him to push through Silas’s block. The pressure threatened to pull him under, the exhaustion pounding at his chest. Wait for me, he begged silently, tearing away the haze on his internal map and locating her. And then he was traveling through the Ether at a dizzying speed, crossing through each door with a burning determination. With one name branded into his heart. Seared into his soul.

Wren. Wren. Wren.

32

Wren

There was no going back from this. No repairing what had broken.

Something, somehow, was killing her.

She couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. She could only focus on the pain. The never-ending, unfiltered pain that had taken over. She wanted to vomit. To cry. To scream. But all she could do was lie there, her body violently convulsing, unwillingly subjugating herself to wave after wave of torture.

And then she was weightless. Floating through time and space, moving through the darkness.

Somebody was speaking to her. A voice. A presence. The land around her disintegrated and she was back in the forest, back in the familiar glow of the Ether.

“Loughty.”

That voice.

That familiar, gravelly voice. She knew that voice. She’d always know that voice.

“August.”

He was running, cradling her body, arms holding her steady. Wren couldn’t comprehend where they were going or how far they were from Blackwood, only that her soul, slowly but surely, was fading.

“Talk to me.” He sounded so clear. So close. “Tell me what happened back there.”

Wren shuddered. “I needed you.”

She wasn’t sure if she imagined it, but she swore she heard him laugh.

“I’m going to want that in writing.”

“I’m very cold.”

“I know, darling. Just keep talking.”

But Wren couldn’t remember why she had been talking or where she was or what she was saying. She could only focus on the ash dancing against her tongue, the ice running through her veins, the soft murmur lulling her to sleep. And then a marvelous thought occurred to her.

“August. I think I’m dying.”

“You’re already dead.” His voice sounded too far away, warped, fragmented against an invisible veil. “You can’t die again.”

“But maybe I can,” Wren said. “Maybe I finally figured it out.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re going to be fine.”

August sounded like he was out of breath, his chest rising and falling violently against Wren’s cheek. For a brief moment she pressed her ear against his chest, searching for a heartbeat, only to remember that neither of them had a pulse anymore. What a silly thing to do, Wren thought to herself.

“What’s silly?” August asked.

But Wren couldn’t hear him anymore. Not really. She was aware of his voice, the sound of it running down her skin like warm water, but she was beginning to lose the ability to piece his words together, their meaning coming undone before they could reach her ears.

“Just let me go,” Wren whispered.