Seris:
I didn’t feel the rift closing.
I didn’t feel the cut of Ariane’s blade as I grabbed it blade first, smearing my life force on the ruins etched into it.
I didn't feel the earth against my palms or the burning in my chest as I hit the ground and rolled back toward the bog's scent of death and ruin just as the rift closed behind me.
All I felt was her absence.
Her sword—Ariane’s sword—was cold in my hands. Too cold. As though it had drunk the last of her warmth and left only steel and silence behind.
The world was blurred, distant. I was on my back, staring at the stars she would never see again through the fog of the murk’s existence. My fingers clutched the hilt of her blade like it was a tether to a reality I could no longer bear to face.
“No,” I choked. My voice broke on t
