Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Grumbling under his breath, Whisper deposited me on the dry pool’s edge and kindly removed his fangs from my fissured flesh.
I lay there trembling.
My burnt skin stung so fucking much. My exposed nerves made everything torture. My insides slowly shut down, no longer functioning thanks to being boiled and barbecued.
Whisper chirped and headbutted me, nudging against open sores.
I winced.
He’d never hurt me so badly before. Never bitten so deeply.
Why now?
Was it because the scent of my smoking body was too much for his predatory senses to ignore? Was he biding his time to eat me?
Opening my hazy eyes, I went to find his—to give him permission to put me out of my misery—but I locked onto the cave instead.
Ice.
Everywhere.
The cavern had been entombed—flash-frozen so completely, every melted wall was sealed in a thick, glacial shell. Jagged arcs of frozen steam hung suspended in the air, caught mid-boil and crystallised. The ceiling glittered like a shattered sky, while cold seeped from every direction, pressing pause, holding my apocalypse in icy stasis.
I was ruined beyond repair, but the pain faded a little as frost crackled over me, acting like a soothing bandage on my unbearable burns. The rock hissed as droplets of my golden-tinted blood landed—reacting as if acid dissolved it.
I stared dumbly.
Why was my blood no longer fully red?
How was it cutting through rock?
How the fuck am I still alive?
Whisper nudged my hip, almost sending me into the empty basin again. My gaze landed on him and...my heart stopped.
No...
His beautiful pelt was scorched to his skin—large patches of black fur burned away, leaving angry welts that cracked as he moved. His whiskers were curled into brittle spirals and his paws...fuck, they were blistered and bleeding.
My chest seized.
“Whisper...” His name scraped up my raw throat.
Rage and guilt collided, white-hot and choking.
Frost settled thicker around my joints, acting like a living brace.
I couldn’t lie here.
Not while he was injured.
I couldn’t die yet.
Not until he was healed.
Clenching my jaw, I forced my ruined body to get the fuck up.
Every part screamed in protest, muscles threatened to shred, and blood poured faster, melting the rock beneath me with smoky curls.
The sight should have terrified me; instead, it forced me to move faster.
My friend was hurt.
And I was the reason.
With a broken snarl, I hauled myself upright and swayed drunkenly. My knees threatened to buckle, but Whisper pressed into me like usual, solid and unwavering.
I touched him where he wasn’t scorched, tears pricking my eyes. Even his nose was shiny with a burn. “I’m so sorry.” I tried to swallow, finding soot instead of saliva. “I’ll fix this, alright? I’ll get you help. I’ll summon the best vets and—”
A tearing sensation severed my heart from my body.
Folding over, my fingers clawed at my flayed chest as an invisible hand reached past my ribcage and fisted my very soul.
Rook.
For a split second, I saw her.
Churning and drowning, whipped around walls and through slipways, her bones broken. Skin icy white, lips pale blue. She wasn’t breathing—
My vision tunnelled.
She’s dying.
Certainty crashed through me, making me retch with annihilating pain. Pain I’d never felt before.
Whisper whimpered, circling me, pressing his burned body against my blood-sticky, frost-wrapped skin.
I convulsed as the world fractured.
Find her.
Go to her.
NOW!
Grief for my best friend tried to smother it.
I owed him.
I needed to help him.
But another flash of excruciating agony dropped me to one bleeding knee.
Clutching my chest, I panted through the worst misery of my life.
It was existential—like a piece of me was shrivelling, suffocating...RUN.
My head snapped upright, locking onto the cave’s entrance up ahead.
A low hum buzzed in the back of my skull, in my goddamn bones—like some hidden tuning fork striking deep, deep inside me. The frequency built, layering over itself, growing sharper, hungrier, until the cave visibly shivered, sending ice and soot raining from the ceiling.
I bolted.
Barefoot and dressed only in a singed pair of trousers, I skidded into the other cave and came to a stop beside the most dangerous pool in the Burning Phoenix caves. I’d always kept my distance as a kid. Always known this particular water hole was connected to the waterfall that poured into the Phoenix River far below.
The waterfall’s roar overshadowed everything, throbbing in my teeth as I glared at the spiralling water, seeing a tomb instead of a pool.
My heart twisted as Rook’s presence flickered.
I grunted at the absence of it as she faded.
She was in there.
How I knew, I didn’t understand. But vicious need surged with primordial desperation and I couldn’t fight it. I didn’t even have the power to look back at Whisper.
All I could do was answer the summoning and dive headfirst into the churning pool.
Chapter Forty-One
FOR ONE WEIGHTLESS MOMENT, I FLEW.
The mountain spat me out of its battering sluice, ejecting me into the sky with its thundering waterfall. My gaze fell on the Nujiang Gorge in the distance, the huge expanse glittering with moonlight, snaking leisurely through the Gaoligong mountains.