Pain arrived before memory did, but light came with it.
Pale white light flickered against the cold cave walls in uneven, jagged pulses, rising and fading like a dying beast struggling for its final breath. Azaliyah’s eyes snapped open to bare stone above her head and wet, freezing moss beneath her spread palms. Every single bone in her frame ached with a deep, structural agony, and her throat tasted heavily of sulfur and smoke. When she forced her upper body upright, the entire cavern tilted violently enough to make her aggressively grab the damp ground to keep from retretching.
A few feet away from her, Camron knelt on the dirt, one heavy gauntlet braced against the stone floor and the other pressed tightly to the center of his chest.
Threads of vibrant, silver-white energy moved bene
