Selina's POV
The ascent was not a climb; it was a slow, agonizing negotiation with gravity and our own breaking bodies.
Every inch of the five hundred feet of sheer quartz wall felt like a mile. Finn’s massive frame was an immense weight against my side, his breath coming in ragged, whistling gasps that rattled through his chest. His left shoulder was completely useless, the grey, calcified crust from the Path of Stillness weeping a pale, clear fluid where the bone had splintered. He was fighting his own muscle memory, his instincts screaming at him to shift entirely to his hybrid form to climb, but we both knew the wolf-fire was currently a contaminated well. The moment Alexis took the reins, the yellow rot in his veins would wake up.
"Keep your eyes on the light," I rasped, my boots s
