Chapter 12: Eternity
I only just manage to escape the waking world in time. The Mara are swollen with power, insane with hunger, and enraged at my repeated attempts to stop them. I hurl myself through the waiting ghosts at the border of reality, forcing their grasping hands aside, and barely make it across without being torn apart.
The sky bleeds. The ground is scorched dust over jagged rock. The air is thick, cloying. I am alone.
My fingers press and knead the forest’s gift as if it only needs the right touch to reach across the endless miles to Ash.
I haven’t forgotten his death, but the instinct to look for him remains. He’s gone, his body lost to the waves, the rest of him . . . I don’t actually know. Lost to me and to the forest, clearly.
But maybe—maybe there’s a place like this
