The wind howled through the mountain pass, sharp and bitter as knives. It whipped Rayne’s cloak around her ankles and turned her hair into tangled lashes against her cheek, but she didn’t flinch.
She couldn’t feel much of anything anymore.
Not the cold.
Not the ache in her limbs from days of sleeplessness.
Not even the sting of rejection that had carved itself so deep into her chest it might as well have been bone.
She just kept walking.
One foot after the other.
No direction. No destination.
Just… away.
From Blackmoon.
From Lucian.
From her father.
From the life that was no longer hers.
Her boots crunched against gravel as she descended the eastern slope, the last part of the academy grounds that bled into the outside world. No guards chased her down. No one called her name.
