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He forced another burst of aether into her lungs. Talked her through another breath. “You should’ve told me to slow down.”

She shook her head, the motion barely more than a wobble against the tree. “If we keep going at this pace, we’ll be back in Ryme by nightfall. It’s not that bad.”

Another push. Her lungs expanded, but the relief was fleeting. A tightness lingered in her chest that wouldn’t fully release. She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on each breath.

Just aether sickness, she reminded herself—but it didn’t feel like what she’d read about. There was a… sharpness to it, a… twisting . The books had really undersold how bad it could get.

Something wet nudged her cheek, and she absently reached up to pet Calcifer. So far, he’d spent the journey out scouting, occasionally checking in only to leave again. Taly had a feeling he was the reason they had yet to cross paths with anything hungry.

“Uh-uh. Get away from her.” Skye waved a hand at Calcifer. “She barely has enough aether for herself, let alone for you.”

“He’s fine,” Taly wheezed between breaths. “He won’t feed when I’m low.”

Calcifer’s tail whipped around, catching Skye on the back of the head.

Skye didn’t even flinch. Just exhaled through his nose, giving her a look that clearly said, Do we really have to bring that thing with us?

Needless to say, Skye and Calcifer’s relationship had gotten off to a rocky start.

“Be nice,” Taly said, breathing in with the next push of aether.

Skye’s mouth twisted, as if tasting something bitter. “You already know my feelings on the matter.”

She did. No matter how many adorable glamographs she showed him, he remained convinced that Calcifer was merely waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

She wrapped her hand around his wrist. “I think I’m fine now.”

“Are you sure?” Green eyes simmered with concern as he looked her over. “I can give you as much as you need.”

“No,” she said, biting back a groan as she sat up.

It was easier to breathe now, but Shards almighty her body still hurt .

“I’m better.” He arched a skeptical brow, and she amended, “Mostly better. Besides, you can flood me with as much aether as you want. That’s not going to make me acclimate any faster. ”

Better to let him conserve for when her legs inevitably gave out and she had no choice but to be carried like a sack of dead weight.

With a jerk of her chin, she said, “Someone should probably tell Kato you can’t start a fire by staring at it.”

“I heard that,” Kato grumbled, crouched over a little pile of leaves and twigs and failing to produce a spark.

“Your kindling’s wet, asshole.”

“I knew that.”

“Did not.”

Skye touched her cheek before going to rescue their campfire. A few strikes of flint later, and they had a small flame.

Lunch consisted of dried meat, hardtack softened with honey, and a handful of berries they’d gathered along the way. They sat in a loose circle, the muted sounds of the forest around them blending with the quiet scrape of knives and the occasional crunch of bread.

Once the meal was finished, Skye came to her and knelt, his eyes meeting hers with that familiar steadiness. “While Kato and I scout ahead, you’re going to stay put. That means no wandering off, no getting into fights, no going on suicide missions, and no getting kidnapped. Again.”

Kato scoffed. “Seriously, she can barely sit up straight. Unless trouble falls from the sky, I think she’ll manage.”

Taly smirked. “Yeah, Skye. What’s the worst thing that could happen? I’ll just be here, staring at the clouds…”

Skye’s frown deepened. “I’m serious, Taly. Rest, meditate, do whatever it takes to get a bit of your aether back, but don’t move .”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “ Go .”

His eyes dropped to her mouth briefly, an unconscious movement, but that’s all it took to make her heart beat faster. He grinned when he heard it—that small, barely-there flutter—the dark stubble on his chin contouring the sharp angles of his face in the low light.

“There’s more faeflower in my pack. We’ll be back soon.” He squeezed her hand before standing, leveling a finger at Calcifer.

“You.”

Calcifer bared his teeth, growling.

“Stay here.” That finger shifted to Taly. “Protect her.”

Calcifer settled at that, as though he’d understood. Sometimes, Taly thought that maybe he could.

“Be careful,” Taly called as they picked a direction.

Skye turned to give her one last, heart-fluttering glance before they disappeared into the trees entirely.

Just like that, Taly was alone.

Her breath smoked through her lips, each panted, ragged attempt for air rasping in and out.

Calcifer whined and nudged her shoulder.

“I’m okay,” she wheezed.

The mimic leaned more of his considerable weight against her. Both for her comfort and his own, she suspected. He was an overprotective little monster. He and Skye had that in common.

Every line of that powerful body went taut with awareness, ears twitching back and forth like radar dishes.

“Good boy,” she murmured, idly petting him. He would keep her safe.

Her head fell back, eyes drifting shut as she breathed in the forest. The air smelled of rain-slick bark, moss, and pine—sharp and clean, but laced with rot.

She needed to meditate. To slip into that healing half-sleep.

A breath in. A breath out.

Again—slower this time. Air filled her lungs like shattered glass.

She focused on the sounds of the forest: leaves whispering in urgent voices, the distant cry of a bird, the steady churn of the river rising over the hiss of rain.

Her heartbeat slowed. Her shoulders eased as thought by thought, worry by worry, her soul began to peel away at the edges.

Until, finally, it slipped free.

The blackness pressed in. She was falling. By now, it was a familiar sensation. The first time—the first hundred times—she’d fought it like drowning, gasping herself awake in a claustrophobic panic.

Now, she let it take her.

Darkness latched on like an undertow, pulling her under.

Her body faded. The world dulled. The ache in her muscles unwound as she slipped deeper.

Down.

And down.

And down .

Slow and steady, she dropped like a stone into the fathomless depth.

Until—

Something clawed at her from the inside. Scraped against bone.

Her lungs seized, and the warmth she’d been sinking into shattered under a single, brutal truth.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her eyes snapped open, and her body jerked against the sudden pain.

She tried to draw a breath—tried, and tried, and failed.

Calcifer stirred beside her. She placed a shaking hand on his flank.

Breathe.

She needed to breathe , to get air into her lungs.

But her body refused to listen. Every muscle was locked tight, every gasp falling short.

She balled her fist and slammed it against her ribs. Something was lodged there.

She tried to call his name. Skye. But her voice was gone, trapped somewhere between her burning lungs and her strangled throat.

Calcifer mewled, tail swishing nervously.

“I— I—”

A cough ripped out of her, jagged and punishing.

She doubled over, pressing her forehead into the dirt as pain bloomed across her chest.

Snap .

Calcifer’s head whipped towards the sound, ears flattening as a low growl built in his throat.

Taly’s eyes widened, her heart pounding with fresh panic, but she managed to lift a trembling hand.

Weakly, she gestured, fingers barely forming the command. Go .

Calcifer hesitated, eyes locked on her, before whining reluctantly. There was nothing for him to do here. Out there, he could at least stop her from getting eaten by a wyvern or a grendel or whatever was trampling through the underbrush.

With a tense flick of his tail, he turned and slunk off into the shadows, moving toward the source of the sound.

Taly rolled onto her back. Her chest heaved. The sound of it—a rasping, broken wheeze—rattled in her ears like a dying bellows.

She tried a few more times to call his name— Skye, Skye… and wondered if the Universe was mocking her.

If she admitted she needed help but no one was around to hear it, did it count?

It was almost funny. Almost. Until her chest seized again, and all she could do was cough.

Taly’s vision narrowed. Stars , she thought distantly, as golden flecks shimmered at the edges of the encroaching darkness. The kind you saw when you stood up too fast or when the world tilted dangerously out of reach.

She blinked, and the stars shifted, stretching into thin, glimmering threads.

Another blink. The threads multiplied, fracturing—like two mirrors facing, their reflections warring, twisting and tearing at each other in an impossible, infinite loop.

She blinked again, harder this time, desperate to clear it. But the disruption only grew—spilling outward, shimmering gold, too vivid, too real.

Her magic was a dried-up well. And without it, her Sight slipped the leash. Every ripple she’d tried to dam up came flooding back in.

The Weave trembled like glass under pressure. A low hum vibrated the air, a dissonance that set her teeth on edge.

Light bent. Shadows flickered in and out of existence.

And through the chaos of it all, a figure appeared.

Bright—almost too bright—it glowed with an intensity that made her squint, unable to make out the details.

A focal point of Fate. A nexus where an intricate web of a million different threads all met and radiated outward.

The forest buzzed with anticipation. Golden threads of imminent potential branched from every leaf, every bird, every raindrop, but mostly from Taly herself to this figure wrapped in light.

Darkness pressed in. She fought to keep her eyes open.

Then, for a brief, fleeting moment, that brightness wavered—dissipated just enough for her to see.

A face, young and sharp, with a flicker of something unsettlingly familiar in its angles.

A smile, both mocking and oddly knowing.

“Right where she said you’d be,” the girl sneered, her eyes—a pale, almost colorless gray-blue—flickering with a mix of disdain and triumph from beneath a dark hood. “Pathetic.”

That was the last Taly knew before the darkness took over.