TYLA’S POV
Darkness didn’t take me.
Light did.
Not the soft kind Arthur wrapped around me when he held me.
Not the sharp silver of Ash’s flames.
Not the white of my mark.
This was something older.
Rawer.
Like creation.
Like the first breath the universe ever took.
It swallowed me whole.
I didn’t fall.
I didn’t fly.
I didn’t move at all.
The world moved through me instead.
Wind exploded in my lungs.
Ice crawled up my spine.
Stars burst open behind my eyelids.
Something brushed across my cheek like a hand made of moonlight.
Mine, a voice whispered.
I tried to scream.
My mouth wouldn’t open.
Light wrapped around my ribs, cold and perfect and unyielding as metal bands. It squeezed—
not to suffocate—
but to examine.
To read me.
To claim me.
And then, with a sound like
