Lyra’s POV
The world around me was crumbling. Not from the battle that had just torn through it. No, it was something deeper, a deafening roar inside me—a storm crashing and breaking against jagged rocks.
I could still hear the screams, the curses, the sounds of flesh and bone shattering.
Time had twisted and blurred into a nightmare I couldn’t wake from. But here, in this quiet, ruined space, it was all so painfully, terribly real.
I held him, my arms cradling him like he was my whole world. *Rhyker.* My heart staggered in its rhythm, each beat dragging him further from me. His body was limp, his breath faint, a fragile thing that could shatter with the slightest movement.
“No, please. This can’t be happening.” I didn’t realize I’d spoken until I heard my own voice, broken and hol
