Vadim PoV
Gravity pulled my spent body downward now that the vines weren't hooked into my ribs and wings.
The wind roared in my ears as the shoreline rushed up to meet me. I hit the wet clay hard, the impact driving what little air remained straight out of my collapsed lungs. Aventine tumbled from my hand, splashing into the churned mud beside my cheek.
I couldn't feel my legs. Blood pooled in my mouth, spilling over my lips into the red mire.
Above, Reginald hovered against the gray, eclipsed sky. He raised two pale fingers to his cheek, wiping away the thin trail of black blood, and looked down at me with cold detachment.
A faint, broken smile cracked my bloody lips even as the cut healed. It didn't matter that the skin knit shut. I had marked him. In a world stripped to cinders and severed bloodlines, I had made him flinch.
