Page 152 of Savage Crown

The pain is unlike anything I’ve ever known.

I want to scream.

But my voice is gone.

I feel my memories unraveling, something slipping from my grasp.

In that moment?—

Seraphina breathes.

Her body jerks.

Her mouth parts on a silent gasp, her fingers twitching against the stone.

The blue light that once pulsed from her skin flares again—brighter, stronger.

Her body arches as if being pulled between worlds.

And then?—

She opens her eyes.

52

SERAPHINA

Iwake with a gasp.

The world slams into me all at once.

Cold air burns my lungs. My chest heaves, struggling to contain a breath that feels too large, too deep, too unnatural.

My pulse thrums slow, sluggish—wrong.

My body feels light, too light, and yet… heavy.

I am here.

I am alive.

But something inside me whispers—not quite.

The cave around me is glowing.

The treasure pulses like a living thing, casting fractured light across the jagged walls. Shadows dance wildly, twisting in eerie patterns.

Rylan is slumped beside me, his chest rising and falling in ragged, uneven breaths.

His skin is paler than I’ve ever seen it, his face drawn, exhausted, haunted.

The book lies beside him, its pages ashen, smoldering.

I remember.

The whispers.

The void.

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