19. Arran

Da-dum.

Da-dum.

Da-dum.

The pain never stopped. It changed, alternating from blinding white that seared through my veins to an intense throb in my skull that was surely building toward implosion. But all of that was secondary to the pain in my chest. It felt like my heart itself had been ripped from my body.

That couldn't be. That was the sound of my heartbeat, wasn't it?

Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.

Every twinge, every ache led back to that—the gaping hole in my chest.

Every dream...

How long had I been sleeping?

Dreams became nightmares. I saw the emerald hills of my homeland, scented the thick pine forests of the Spine—only to have it all dissolve away into nothing. The green faded to brown, the mighty trees withered and died.

Open your eyes.A voice—a command that felt like the space between breaths as it washed over my soul and filled in the cracks.

But I couldn't.

Fuck, it hurt to try. Every muscle protested—

Fuuuucckkkk.

I couldn't fight it. I was being torn away, ripped into fucking shreds—

Until I wasn't.

Until I landed in the middle of a barren valley, orange-red dirt spreading all around me. A ring of towering mountains surrounded the empty plain, the same color as the dust beneath my feet.

But it was only a momentary reprieve. Shock and confusion had taken precedence, but with my feet firmly planted, the pain came roaring back. I fell to my knees, clutching my head. Death would be better than this…

Maybe this was death.

The hell I deserved, for all the pain and destruction I had rained down over the past three hundred years.

But if this was hell, I wasn't alone.

I saw his boots half a breath before I heard his voice—

"I did not expect so much screaming."