Lincoln POV:
There was no sky.
No ground.
No sense of up or down.
Just falling-through gold, through air, through nothing.
And then—
Solid ground caught my knees.
Something in between, like pressed moss woven from light.
I tried to breath and nearly choked on the weird warmth of the air.
Ayaana's hands brace my shoulders. "Lincoln!"
I clung to her before I could cling to the world around me.
The others landed nearby with startled grunts.
We were together.
Not scattered.
Not torn apart.
Still whole.
But the realm around us… was not.
Cracks ran through the golden moss beneath us, like fractures in glass. Light leaked through them in slow pulses - warm one moment, then cold.
The air tremble.
The children were nowhere to be seen.
The glowing sky above us flickered like a d
