The ride back to Mosaic City was a study in silence.
Arden lay on a stretcher in the back of the skiff, the hum of the engines vibrating through the metal floor. She was awake, staring at the ceiling, but her eyes were focused on something a thousand miles away.
Her left arm lay by her side, battered and bruised but whole. Her right arm... wasn't there.
Where her forearm used to be, the violet energy field flickered and pulsed. It held the shape of a hand, translucent and ghostly. Every time the skiff hit a pocket of turbulence, the energy flared, reacting to the instability of the air itself like a geiger counter finding radiation.
"How does it feel?" Kael asked softly. He sat on the floor beside the stretcher, his hand resting lightly near her shoulder. He hadn't let go of her good hand since they pulled her off the refinery roof.
Arden lifted the ghost hand. She watched the violet light trace the lines of a palm that no longer existed in the physical world.
