The salt was the first thing that brought me back to the world of the living. It stung like a thousand needles, burrowing into the raw gashes on my wrists and the jagged hole in my side. I was lying face down in the wet sand of a hidden cove, the tide washing over me in cold, rhythmic surges that felt like the earth was trying to swallow me whole.
I coughed, spitting out a mouthful of brine and grit. My lungs felt heavy, coated in a layer of fine, volcanic ash from the explosion at the spice farm.
"Sasha..." I croaked.
I rolled onto my back, the movement sending a white-hot flash of agony through my nervous system. The sky above Zanzibar was no longer dark. It was a bruised, sickly violet, stained by the lingering afterglow of the Archive’s final pulse. The stars looked cold uncaring wi
