One day earlier.
Eli opened her eyes.
The sky above her was blue — not the bleeding sky of battle, not the black void of the sixth realm, but blue. The kind of blue that came after too many storms. The kind that felt like a lie told gently.
She blinked.
The ridge stretched before her like a memory she hadn't earned — stone and mud, quiet wind, and the faint curve of the hill's distant silhouette in the haze. The grass was damp beneath her. The sun, impossibly gentle, warmed the side of her face.
Veil's instructions had been correct after all.
Sleep here, he had said. Near the old walls. Near the place where he vanished.
And she had.
Now she was awake.
Alive.
But when she pushed herself up, the world tilted — not from vertigo, but from imbalance. Her right side gave out. She fell hard onto her shoulder, breath knocked from her chest.
She stared down at the space where her arm should have been.
Gone.
