"Cover us!" I yelled.
The desperation leaked through my voice before I could stop it.
Trace's grip tightened instantly, her hand locked around my arm with a strength born of urgency, not restraint. It hurt—would leave bruises later—but she didn't loosen it. She couldn't. The moment she did, I knew I'd fall.
I barely had time to think just hold a little longer before she turned and ran, Sare moving with her in perfect sync.
The world became motion.
The bone stretched endlessly beneath us, its pale surface blurring as we ran. Getting off it felt like a lifetime. Each step dragged, each breath burned. We'd spent most of the day climbing onto it—now escaping it felt impossible, like the rib itself was refusing to let us go.
The warmth of the sun faded gradually at first, then all at once.
I felt it leaving my skin, replaced by the creeping chill of night. Goosebumps rose along my arms. My breaths fogged faintly in the air. I realized, distantly, that I could no longer feel the heat at all.
We'd been running longer than I thought.
Longer than I could remember.
Then—
Something tore.
Not physically. Not like pain.
Something inside me snapped loose and vanished, leaving behind a hollow so sudden it stole the air from my lungs.
I stumbled to a stop.
Trace tried to pull me forward, but my body wouldn't respond. I turned slowly, dread pooling heavy in my chest. The sky above us was dark now—fully dark—stars faintly visible through the canopy.
The sun was gone.
I hadn't realized how long we'd been running.
The Voice spoke.
Knight — Rank: Aberrant — has died.
I closed my eyes.
I'd known before it said anything.
The space where the Knight had been—constant, steady, reassuring—was empty. Gone in a way that felt final, irreversible. Like a limb I hadn't realized I relied on until it was missing.
He'd made fighting easier.
He'd taken blows meant for me.
He'd saved my life more times than I could count.
But more than that—
I'd grown fond of him.
The realization hurt more than the loss of strength. More than the tactical disadvantage. It hurt because it wasn't something I could replace or rationalize away.
I'd lost something valuable.
Not just a weapon.
An ally.
And the night pressed in around us, cold and indifferent, as the echo of his absence settled deep inside my chest.
After a moment, the loss of him stopped being emptiness.
It twisted into something I didn't recognize at first—an intensity I rarely felt, sharp and overwhelming, the kind that didn't flare and fade but lingered. Heat bloomed beneath my skin, spreading through my chest and up my neck, clouding my thoughts until it felt like I was breathing smoke instead of air.
My hands clenched on instinct, fingers curling into tight fists as if my body was bracing for something my mind refused to name.
Trace pulled at me again, harder this time, dragging me forward as my steps faltered. Sare had moved ahead of her, guiding in the dark now, one hand gripping Trace's arm to keep her on course. I followed because my legs remembered how, even as everything else slipped.
I heard their voices.
They were close—urgent—but the sound reached me wrong. Muffled. Warped. Like it was coming from far away, passing through water. I couldn't make out the words.
I didn't try.
I didn't care.
That realization unsettled me more than the heat itself.
I tried to let the feeling go. Tried to force my focus back to the danger, to the creature still hunting us, to the fact that stopping meant dying. But the harder I pushed it down, the worse it grew—my pulse quickening, breath turning shallow as my body reacted before my thoughts could catch up.
I'd felt this before.
The heat.
The way instinct took over where thought failed.
The cold, empty look that settled into my ashen eyes when something inside me finally shut off.
I remembered the first time.
The memory rose unbidden, vivid and detached, like I was watching it from somewhere outside myself.
Chosen.
That was what they were called.
I saw them again—casual, unhurried, laughing as they weighed coin in their hands. I saw my mother fall, her body hitting the ground in front of me, treated like something disposable. Something that could be taken, violated, and discarded for a little more money. For their amusement.
The world had gone quiet after that.
I remembered the heat blooming in my chest, the way my vision narrowed until there was nothing left but stillness and intent.
But what came after—
That part was gone.
A blank space where memory should have been.
I couldn't remember what I'd done.
Only that I was still alive.
And now, as the night closed in around us and the absence of my Knight burned like an open wound, that same feeling was clawing its way back to the surface.
Hot.
Unrelenting.
Demanding to be felt.
For the first time since we started running, I wasn't afraid of the thing hunting us through the dark.
I was afraid of what would happen if I stopped holding myself together.
Finally—after what felt like only moments—
Smack.
The sharp sting across my face snapped the world back into place. I sucked in a breath and staggered slightly, disoriented, the night rushing in all at once.
I blinked hard, then rubbed my cheek where Trace had hit me. My head was still pounding, but the haze was gone—burned away by the sudden shock.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice tight. The frustration in it was unmistakable.
Before I could answer, Sare cut in. "Not now. We need to move. The other rib—now."
I forced myself to focus and looked around, taking stock of my surroundings. Tall trees closed in on all sides, their trunks dark and dense beneath the canopy. We were off the bone—finally—back on solid ground, deep in the forest.
My eyes widened slightly as the realization hit.
How long was I gone?
The memory I'd fallen into—the one I'd spent years trying not to touch—had felt endless. Heavy. And yet… we were here now.
I turned toward Trace, my throat tightening. "I'm sorry," I whispered. My voice came out hoarse, stripped raw by guilt.
She couldn't see my face. I knew that—the night was too thick, and she relied on sound more than sight anyway. Still, something in my tone must have reached her.
Her expression softened.
"It's fine," she said quietly, though her brow remained creased. "All that matters is that you're back."
The words settled deeper than I expected.
Sare stopped a few steps ahead of us and turned. "Are you ready?"
I nodded once.
Then, without thinking too hard about it, I reached out and took Trace's hand.
This time, I led.
My head still throbbed, and as we moved, the pain came rushing back in full force—but my thoughts were clearer now. Focused enough to matter.
We moved forward together, deeper into the forest—away from the bone, away from the memory, and toward whatever waited next.
As we made our way back toward the first rib, guilt settled in my chest and refused to move.
It was unfamiliar—sharp in a way I didn't know how to brace against. Rage, I understood. Anger had always been loud, consuming, something I could burn through or let loose. But this was different.
This hurt.
It pressed inward instead of outward, sinking deep and spreading slowly, like cold seeping through bone. Every step forward seemed to drag it along with me, heavier than my injuries, heavier than the exhaustion.
I'd never had anyone close enough to me to feel this way before.
There had been no one to fail. No one whose trust I could betray by losing myself—even for a moment. I'd survived alone for so long that the idea of my actions affecting someone else hadn't fully taken root.
Now it had.
And the realization was suffocating.
The guilt didn't scream or demand release. It didn't give me something to fight. It simply stayed, vast and endless, swallowing me whole like an ocean without a surface in sight.
Rage had always felt like fire.
This felt like drowning.
And I didn't know yet how to surface.