Lyra POV

I woke up to the smell of damp earth and the taste of copper in my mouth, but the most painful thing wasn't the injury, it was the silence in my chest where my voice used to live, my eyes snapped open, and for a moment, the world was a blur of overlapping greens and browns. The Sunken Grove was no longer a dream of gray ruins, but a cold, wet reality. I was lying at the edge of the ritual pool, my clothes soaked through and clinging to my skin like a second layer of grief, I tried to ...