The first thing I felt was weight.
Not pain, not fear. Just the heavy, almost human ache of being here.
My body pressed into damp soil, cold seeping through my palms. When I opened my eyes, there was no silver light, no fractured sky. Just earth. Just dark trees stretching high and thin, their branches moving gently like they were breathing. The kind of quiet that hums instead of whispers.
For a long time, I didn’t move. I didn’t trust the stillness. I’d been fooled before.
The ground was real, though. The dirt clung to my skin, smelled of rain and ash. My shadows didn’t hiss or twist — they pulsed, slow and alive, like they were finally resting.
Then I heard it.
A breath.
I turned. Thorn was there, half-sitting against a tree, his shirt torn, blood dried at his collarbone. He wasn’
