The strange thing about dying was how small the world got.
Then the instinct arrived, the one every living thing recognizes, where the body tells the soul that they are about to pass.
She wanted to tell him she was sorry for doing it here, in his arms, where he would have to feel it happen and carry the memory of it for the rest of his very long life.
Somewhere far away, her muscles were shaking from holding her own body weight, which for a wolf should've been nothing. A sword clattered on the ground and one of Maddox's arms came up to support her.
Air rushed past them with the sensation of being heavier. Maddox must have made a large jump.
Then she heard wings.
"You can open them."
She couldn't.
Reality shrank until there was nothing left but his heartbeat and her breathing and the narrowing distance between each exhale.
And her last conscious thought was if this was the last thing she heard, then at least the world had gotten that part right.
✦✦✦
