Page 160 of The Eighth Isle

My God, I’d ruined it. I’d ruined everything all over again.

My arms gave up on me and I fell to the ground, hitting my face hard in the process.

I passed out again, but this time, I welcomed the darkness with arms wide open.

Thirty-Three

It must have beena dream I woke up in.

No fire around me at all. The trees—they weren’t burning. The branches weren’t moving. The leaves on them were green and big and shiny—perfect,exactly as leaves should be.

And the grass underneath me was as healthy as it should be, too.

I pushed myself up, feeling strange. Not in pain, but like I was living in a different body. Not in a bad way, just…in a different way. Like my skin was more elastic. Like my mind was more open.

And the box with the emerald crystal in the front of the lid was right there, laying open a few feet to my side.

No ball of blue light inside it.

No Fessa.

No roars.

No flames.

I stood up and my legs shook, and suddenly I couldn’t think straight at all, couldn’t even begin to imagine what the hell had happened. All I knew was that I needed to go back to the lake, tofind the others, to see if someone had survived. To see where the sirens were.

Had Fessa done something to me?

I looked down at my body, clothes torn and dirty, but no fresh blood was on me. A little under my nose from earlier, but not between my legs—and that was a good sign, wasn’t it?

“Run,”I whispered to myself, and I was going to. I was going to run back where I came from and find out what had happened, and why it smelled so good in the woods, and why the birds were chirping so loudly.

Had they always sung like this? Because I couldn’t remember for the life of me.

And had I made up that scene with Fessa? Had it been my imagination that she’d caught me?

Because it made no sense that I was still alive.

Just run, run, run!

A step and I fell to my knees, my body too weak to hold me. My legs were shaking, and I had barely any energy to keep my eyes open. But there was a tree near me, and I held onto it before I fell all the way. I just held onto it and breathed andbeggedmy legs to carry me.

And then something moved.

Tears burst out of my eyes and my mouth opened, but I could make no sound. I recognized the shape of him, wings and all, even before I saw his face with any clarity—he was too far still. And he was just as weak as me, falling from one tree trunk onto another, jumping forward and limping to the sides, his head down most of the time.

Grey is alive.

My shoulders shook as I cried in silence, but I didn’t even try to move. I just stayed there, kneeling and hanging onto that tree.

“Fall…”

My name fell from his lips in a whisper. He was searching for me.

He was searching for me and I couldn’t stop crying and I couldn’t call out his name. I could do nothing but sit still until Grey was close enough, and he finally—finally—looked up.

He saw me.

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