The silence that followed the explosion of memories was not empty; it was heavy, a physical weight that pressed the oxygen from my lungs. The red dust of the canyon didn't settle; it hovered, suspended in an unnatural stasis, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
I was on my knees, my palms pressed into the biting grit of the Nevada sand. My hands were empty. The space where Ethan had stood—where the man who was my husband, my protector, and my mirror had finally surrendered his physical form—was a scorched circle of salt and cedar ash.
The rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the subterranean loom vibrated through my kneecaps, a deep, tectonic pulse that felt like a heartbeat slowed to the speed of stone. It wasn't the sound of a machine; it was the sound of a consequence.
"Ethan?"
