The air in the ravine still tasted of ozone and burnt light. My pulse thundered in my ears, an erratic, uneven rhythm that struggled to find a steady beat. The grey-scale purgatory had shivered and buckled under the force of my pulse, leaving a jagged, glowing scar of color in the middle of the desolation—a physical mark of my defiance that hissed against the surrounding void.
I slumped, my knees hitting the dirt. The ground, now vibrant with the residual echoes of my power, felt strangely hostile, as if the earth were trying to heal itself by absorbing the very life I had just spilled into it.
"Ivy." Seth’s voice was closer, no longer the clinical, detached tone of a strategist. He was panting, his hand hovering near my shoulder, though he didn't quite make contact. The brittle, charcoa
