The shadowline of the forest embraced me. Cold rainwater coursed down the slope, pooling in the long grass and splashing beneath my feet as I dashed onwards. I'd almost reached the thick knotting of wild trees when the loud crack of gunfire had me spinning back around.

My heart stopped beating.

Danne's mouth was a grim line. He'd fixed his gaze on Graysen, along with a handgun. So much hate blazed in those slitted eyes. Fear more paralyzing than being trapped beneath him in the limousine engulfed me as he pulled the trigger—

The gun kicked back as he rapidly unloaded the magazine. Sporadic white light flashed from its muzzle, and I could almost smell the burnt metallic scent of gunfire wafting through the air.

No!

NO!

Graysen was a smear of movement—

A shifting of his shoulders—

As he ducked and weaved, dodging the deadly shots.

Click-click-click—

Danne cursed and tossed the gun away. The clatter of metal on stone followed swiftly.

I knew I shouldn't remain standing here. I should be running. But I couldn't turn away. I couldn't move my feet.

Black strands of wavy hair swept sideways as Graysen angled his head. He arched an eyebrow. "You were saying, Pelan?"

"Do your worst, Crowther," Danne spat.

Graysen cracked his neck and knuckles as a small cold smile curved his mouth.

Danne had the good sense to glance warily at his soldiers before taking several hurried steps backward.

Sunlight burnished Graysen's broad shoulders with gold. The wind teased the ends of his hair as he faced off against the small army of soldiers. His armor, the fabric threaded with adamere and cut like fish scales, clung to him like a second skin. As he reached back to unsheath his wyrm sword, the ancient blade sliding free from leather sang a sweet note that thrummed through my own bones.

Graysen's approach was the stalk of a predator.

Danne's soldiers spread out to flank him. It didn't seem to disturb Graysen in the slightest. He simply noted them with cold calculation. He whirled the wyrm sword before him in a humming figure-eight—both a challenge and promise. Faster and faster and faster until the rotating blade moved so quickly it was scarcely visible and became a blur of motion.

Danne stepped behind his men as they raised their machine guns and crossbows, shotguns, and swords.

Graysen surged forward, the spinning sword in front of him—

The explosive sound of gunfire tore apart the summery day—

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

RAT-TAT-TAT!

Bullets struck the whirring blade like fistfuls of fireworks. They ricocheted off wyrmbone to spray the road, the cars and nearby trees in ear-piercing thuds.

Unsheathing a second sword that gleamed a dark silver—a bastard-twin to his wyrmblade—he lunged.

I had heard of Graysen's strength. I'd felt it when we fought. I knew of his keen senses too. And this...this was what he was born for. He was deadly and exquisite. Vicious and lethal. I couldn't tear my gaze away. I should be fleeing—I should be gone from here, but the beauty with which he killed transfixed me.

Graysen was a winter storm. Blustery. Wicked. Malevolent. He flowed with such unnatural speed he was barely discernible as he weaved and whirled, striking effortlessly—a glint of mottled bone, dark silver, and red. Great arcs of crimson sprayed across asphalt and shiny metal cars, pooling on the roadside. The thud of bodies collapsing one by one by one.

He tossed the bastard sword into the air—

Swooping down to snatch up a hubcap—

And flung it like a Frisbee—

To decapitate a soldier.

Whirling—

To block a strike of bullets.

To cut aside a flying bolt.

Bounding upward, he stretched his hand long and caught his bastard sword on its descent—

To drive the vicious edge through the skull of a soldier.

Hurtling forward, kicking a corpse with a heavy boot—

To send the limp body flying into another soldier, knocking her off her feet.

A frenzied attack. A dance of death. A clash of ringing steel.

Three more soldiers were down.

Moving, always moving. Instinctively knowing where the enemy would be before they had even thought through their next move.

I didn't see it.

I didn't notice the nocking of a heavy bolt in a crossbow.

Nor the aim and precision of the weapon that crackled and fizzed with dark energy, loaded with a curse until it was too late.

I saw the soldier take aim at Graysen.

My heart exploded into a panicked pace.

"Graysen!" I cried, my voice shrill with fright.

He half-twisted around. His black eyes widened with fear slashing through them to see me still here. "Behind you!" I screamed, pointing.

Too late, too late—

A whooshing sound, fast and deadly, slicing through the air—

The bolt punched through his armor, right into his upper back.

A thud and a bark of pain.

Thrust forward with the impact of the crossbow's bolt, Graysen went down hard.

His wounded grunt as his knees slammed onto the asphalt tore through me. He tipped forward, quickly splaying a hand against the ground to keep him from keeling over.

His blood-speckled face whipped sidelong and our gazes collided.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

Then—

The Cursed bolt exploded into a cloud of black mist—

And he was hidden from me.

This time the bolt hadn't been cursed with lightning or fire or ice, this one was cursed with the darkness of a tangle-web spider.

As the mist scattered, a webbing of black tendrils crawled around Graysen's body like phantom fingers. A spider binding a fly.

Danne snatched a gun from a soldier. His cruel gaze hunted the tree line and when he found me, his mouth became wolf-like as he pushed off, running toward me, a soldier at his heels.

RUN!" Graysen yelled, pushing himself upright as he struggled to free himself against the cursed magic that lashed his arms to his sides.

I can't...I can't...I can't...

He managed to yell one last time, "NOW NELLE!" before the creeping tendrils wound themselves over his face, wriggling up over his mouth and covering his eyes in a thick layer.

Like the catacombs beneath Ascendria, where I'd yelled at Graysen to do the same, this time it was me spinning away and running. I wondered if he'd felt the same desperate need not to. If the same awful heaviness of guilt that suffocated my mind and heart had suffocated his too.

The crisp scent of pine and rotting vegetation assailed my senses as I plunged into the forest, the morning light cut sharply from the dense foliage overhead. Stormwater run-off flowed in wide streams as it coursed downwards. Flying through the thick undergrowth, I barely felt the branches tearing at my face and arms, or that my feet squelched through soft muddy earth and wet leaves, that a spike of pain stabbed my toes when I tripped over jutting roots.

I didn't know where I was running, only that it was in a straight direction on a decline.

There was a roaring sound, growing louder.

I burst through a gap between leafy bushes and slammed to a halt—

Swaying precariously over the edge of a cliff—

I flung my arms outward to steady myself, my heart slamming into my throat and my eyes bugging at the dizzying height. The earth beneath my feet was sodden. Where I stood, was right on the edge of a ravine, and down below, at the base of the sheer cliff was a thick cropping of shrubs and from there the ground gently rolled to a rocky riverbank with churning white water.

Panting hard, I hauled myself back to safety.

Blowing out a pent-up breath, I pressed a shaky hand to my chest where my heart hammered an erratic beat against my ribs.

So close. That had been so close.

Where to run?

I jittered, turning back and forth, moving forward before stepping back in utter panic, absolutely bewildered at what I should be doing. Stormwater poured over the cliff's edge, cascading in white-tipped streams. Rising up on my toes and canting my upper body, my gaze frantically followed the winding edge of the ravine's steep sides with the angry swollen river below.

There!

I spied an area not too far from where I was standing that wasn't as sheer as this part of the cliff. There were shrubs and flaxes growing down its gentle sides that could help me clamber down safely. I could keep running through the forest or I could climb downward.

Climb down...

No, run. RUN!

I spun around to flee but a soldier bolted through the gloomy forest and cut me off.

Someone huffing and out of breath arrived behind me. I whirled. My torn skirt, damp and dirty, slapped against my thighs.

Danne, his cheeks red, pushed through the webbing of thick shrubs. He leaned forward, bracing a hand on his thigh, to catch his breath. Straightening, he grimaced and wiped a forearm across his sweaty forehead with the hand that clutched a gun. "Nelle. There's nowhere else to run," he puffed out. Sweat darkened his auburn hair to bronze. Blood ran from his half-bitten ear down his freckled neck to soak the white collar of his dress shirt. He raised his arm and trained the gun on me. "I never said I'd give you over alive, or at the very least un-maimed."

I tipped my chin up—Calm, calm, calm.

"Get over here, now!" he ordered.

"Go fuck yourself," I barked, fisting my fingers so hard my nails bit into the soft flesh of my palms.

"Now!"

A noise in the undergrowth—a snapping of twigs and branches.

Both Pelan Soldiers braced themselves, swinging their guns in the same direction.

Danne cursed but kept his hateful gaze pinned on me. "I'd stay right where you are, Crowther. I don't think Nelle can dodge bullets like you. And if you choose to test me...you might just be able to catch her corpse before it hits the ground."

My gaze slid to Graysen. My heart swelled to see him alive. Gore and filth splattered his chest. A few of the cursed tendrils he'd somehow hacked away, hung off his body. His voice was low and lethal. "Let her go."

"Too late for that I'm afraid."

Movement drew me back to Danne. His finger twitched on the gun's trigger as he took a long step toward me.

I took a step back.

My heel found the edge of the soft, sludgy cliff and skidded out from beneath me.

Unbalanced, I swung backward—

My terror squeezed my chest like a vice. I threw my arms out to catch my balance and right my body—

The ground jolted—

Like the tremble of an earthquake.

Panic erupted, razoring through my veins and choking my lungs. It was still there beneath my chilled, dirty feet—the packed earth, the edge of the cliff face. Only it had shifted ten inches lower.

Pure fear burst into Graysen's black eyes. He parted his mouth—

My muscles bunched to spring forward—

My weight was too much for the rain-soaked mountain and a generous slice of the cliff face crumbled beneath me—

I fell.

***

It wasn't the earth shifting beneath Nelle I heard first—it was her heart erupting into a frantic beat, like rain pelting a tin roof. I felt her terror in my own chest and it strangled every other thought I possessed

The earth had weakened beneath her feet and she'd jolted down with it. Her body swayed, unbalanced by the motion, and she flung her arms out to steady herself. Her big gray eyes flared impossibly wide, shining with horror.

Our gazes locked. My heart, my godsdamned heart stopped beating. I was frozen with fear.

Too much. It was too much. I'd just witnessed her tumbling from the mansion's rooftop and held her in my arms as she died.

I couldn't.

I couldn't lose her again.

I wouldn't survive it.

Run forward—my mind screamed faster than I could hurl the words from my mouth. Now, Nelle, NOW!

And then the earth crumbled beneath her.

A whole chunk from the cliff face just gave way.

One moment she was there—

The next—

Gone.

***

I

Fell,

Fell,

Fell.

Free-falling was the most unnatural feeling in the whole world. Not having the earth beneath one's feet, nor the comfort of gravity locking you to the ground.

The creature vibrated in the prison in which it was trapped. It hurled itself at the wall of Silas's dark magic, hissing and roaring—

And in the scream erupting from my throat, came the sound of my terror, the injustice, the despair I'd never get more time with my family, my sisters, Graysen—

He'd come for me, found me, tried to save me—

My mind filled with Graysen Crowther, with those black eyes that smiled even when his mouth couldn't. And those threads, whatever it was that connected us together, always whispering beneath my skin. But it was more than that, I realized as I fell, my hair streaming with my descent. He and I had been fated to come together, for reasons that still eluded me even on the cusp of death.

He was mine.

I was his.

And we'd never have time to explore that.

There would never be an us.

The sun shone in a bright blue sky and it filled my vision.

Some sort of peace settled over me. My hair flailed and the cool fingers of wind brushed past my limbs, the cliff face rushing by as I fell, fell, fell.

Soon—

Far too soon I'd hit the ground.

My bones and organs would shatter and rupture.

And I would die.

A blight of darkness blocked out the sun. As if the moon had slipped over the golden orb, and a midday eclipse had occurred, and there was nothing to be seen but darkness in a sea of blue... Until I realized that someone had hurled themselves over the edge of the cliff.

Graysen.

No, no, no no—NO!

He was an arrow slicing through the air.

He hurtled into me hard. As we tumbled, his strong arms caged my body before he spun, flipping us both over so he was below me, ready to meet the earth first. In the corner of my eye, I caught an eerie glimpse of a dark emerald sheen.

We were falling, cool air ruffling Graysen's inky black hair, and time slowed. Our gazes met and held. He might have been about to say something. His mouth parted, but instead of speaking, he kissed me—fast, furious, a slamming of his lips to mine.

It was a desperate kiss, laced with finality. In it, I tasted how he truly felt for me. He couldn't tell me, but his kiss let me know. Too late—

Too late for both of us—

It was never going to be the fall that killed us both. It was meeting the end, the jarring stop where our bones would snap, our brains would whiplash, and our organs would liquefy.

As the top layer of thick shrubs, leaves, and spindly branches came into view, everything happened so fast.

Graysen tipped me up sideways— 

Pressed something into my hand.

He whistled—

A loud sound. A shrill call.

A streak of dark emerald speared through the rushing air and struck me right in the chest where I grasped something small and cool.

The breath got knocked out of me—

As I was punched violently sideways.

I screamed. Reached for Graysen. Not understanding what he'd done.

I soared through the air, flying parallel to the ground, caught up in a thick cloud of fluttering wings. 

I heard the impact—

Graysen's body slammed into the ground.

The sound of splintering bones exploded in my ears.

I screamed for him again. The sound of my anguish reverberated against the cliff and down the twisting turns of the river. My heart cleaved in two and every thought, every feeling, went out of my head as I realized in horror...I couldn't feel him...that intense awareness we had for one another had vanished.

The chittering insects swarmed me and darkened my vision as they tightly swirled my figure to strike me again and again. Tossing me about. Pushing me onwards. They carried me through the thicket of supple shrubs that blanketed the ground. The shrubs branches and leaves acted like webbing—slowing my speed, down, down, down. As I smashed through the heart of the shrubs, gravity pulled me closer to the ground that ran on a gentle slope to meet the rocky shore of the river.

My shoulder cracked upon the earth and pain jarred through my bones. I tumbled, rolling, slowing down until I came to a skidding halt on my back, the river stones a fingertip away.

My lungs filled with air as I gulped in ragged breaths. I was alive. Stunned. But alive!

Stabbing pain throbbed in my shoulder. I was bruised and sore and blood wept from the many slashes gashed into my skin from the flaying branches I'd tumbled through. Scrambling to my feet, I woozily wobbled, my mind dazed. Terror coiled so tightly in my chest, the sensation so overwhelming I forgot about the pain ravaging my body.

He can't be dead.

He can't!

The cloud of chittering scarabs grazed against my skin as they eagerly flew around me. A few of the winged critters were tangled up in my hair and caught in my dress. I swayed, trying to make sense of how I'd survived. How the scarabs had saved me. Uncurling my fingers, I discovered an emerald vial with the stopper jammed in tight. Dropping it, the vial clattered on stone and the swarm of scarabs flew like a wicked wind straight for it.

Graysen!

My body worked while my brain stumbled to catch up, and I pushed into motion. Glancing upward, my gaze traveled the cliff to where I'd stood moments ago.

Graysen Crowther had saved me.

He'd willingly thrown himself over the cliff and given up his own life in exchange for mine.

Because as I stumbled through the cold, dark shadows cast by the mountain, I saw just how high the cliff was, and there was no way Graysen would survive falling from that great height.