Darkness clung to her like wet silk, heavy and suffocating. For a while, Alina thought she was still trapped inside the Veil—adrift in that endless expanse of shadow, voices clawing at her mind. But slowly, sound pressed in around her: the faint crackle of fire, the groan of shifting stone, the low rhythm of someone breathing close by.
Her eyelids felt carved from stone, but she forced them open. Blurred light seared her vision. A ceiling of fractured stone loomed above, beams sagging under the weight of ruin. The scent of ash and iron burned her throat.
Then a figure moved. A strong hand cupped the side of her face, steadying her when she tried to rise. Kael’s eyes were rimmed in shadows of exhaustion, his jaw tight, blood staining his temple. He looked like he hadn’t left her side for
