Pain was the first thing I felt.
Not the searing, blinding kind—but the heavy, dragging ache that settled in every limb, every breath. Like my body was made of stone, and the air itself too thick to swallow. My fingers twitched, brushing against damp moss and cool earth. When I opened my eyes, the world was hazy, sunlight fractured through a curtain of green leaves.
I was alive.
Barely.
A groan escaped my throat, low and broken, as I turned my head and tried to remember. The flight. The storm of memories. The fire in my wings. The fall. My last thought had been of Erya—her face soft and sleeping in my arms, and of Darius, standing in the clearing, shouting after me.
And then... darkness.
Now I lay in the heart of the Vale, surrounded by stillness. No rustling wind. No chirping birds. Just the sound of my heartbeat, slow and uneven, and the quiet whisper of something moving nearby.
A shadow passed over me.
I squinted through the haze.
The bird.
It wasn't gone.
