The burning was killing her.
Selena had thought she understood pain had endured wounds in battle, suffered the psychic agony of her mother's disappointment, felt the wrenching ache of choosing love over duty. But this was different. This was the pain of a star collapsing in on itself, of matter compressed beyond endurance, of a flame fed by its own consumption until there was nothing left to burn but the burner herself.
Her grace was devouring her from the inside out.
She could feel it happening in increments so small they should have been unnoticeable, but accumulated they told the story of her dissolution. Each second she maintained the inferno that held the marrow sea at bay, she lost a fragment of herself. A memory here—the scent of rain in heaven's garden. A sensation there—the feeling of wind beneath her wings on her first solo flight. Pieces of who she was, what she'd been, burning away to fuel the fire that kept them alive.
