Page 223 of Emylia

I couldn’t feel her breath.

“Maalik!”

My voice tore from me, ragged and panicked, shattering the stillness.

He was at my side in an instant, lifting her from the current with terrifying ease, cradling her against his chest like she was something fragile.

Her eyes were closed. Her lips, pale. Her body?—

Gods. Her body wasn’t moving.

It was too still.

“Evie—no, no, no?—”

I scrambled after them, slipping in the mud as Maalikai laid her on the mossy bank. My legs gave out beneath me. I landed hard in the mud, lungs barely working.

She wasn’t breathing.

She wasn’t breathing.

I dropped to my knees beside her, my fingers shaking uncontrollably as I pressed them to her throat, her wrist, her chest—anywhere.

Anywhere that might tell me I hadn’t just?—

No.

She couldn’t be gone.

She couldn’t be gone because of me.

“I did this,” I whispered. The words barely formed. “Gods, I?—”

Then—there it was.

Faint. Fluttering. But there.

Maalikai’s gaze met mine, grim and steady. “She’s alive.”

Relief collapsed my lungs. A sound escaped me—half sob, half breath—as Evie’s eyes fluttered open, dazed and sluggish.

They found mine.

“Hi,” she murmured.

Tears blurred my vision. I let out a strangled laugh that tasted like blood.

“Are you okay?” My voice cracked, torn and unsteady.

She sat up slowly, brows furrowed.

“Yeah... I think so.” She flexed her fingers, curling them into a fist. “I feel weird. Different.”

“Oh Gods.”

Her gaze snapped to mine, suddenly alert. “Weird good, not weird bad.” She must’ve seen the panic rising again. “I’m completely fine.”

But I wasn’t.

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