Darkness, thick and heavy, like breathing stone. The air was wet with soot, the cloying scent of ash, damp earth, and blood. Arin's eyes fluttered open. She lay on a bed of scratchy furs, her fingers curled into her palms, dried blood webbed between them. Her body ached, a deep, bruising throb, as if she'd been dragged across mountains.
Her mouth tasted of iron. Her mind felt like a crater, raw and empty, where her soul used to sit. She remembered collapsing in the carriage. The biting snow, the flickering flames behind them in the rearview. The voice – that insidious voice – still whispering even now, soft as smoke but sharp as splinters. You are mine now. You did what you were meant to do. She shuddered, a full-body tremor.