Lyra POV

Falling should have been the end. Instead, the shadows caught me.

Their touch felt like a thousand cold needles whispering my name as the force of the medallion’s recoil ripped the air from my lungs. I didn’t hit the rocks below, I didn’t shatter. I became weightless—a broken doll tossed into the mouth of the ravine.

The violet mist thickened around me, coiling around my limbs like freezing silk. It wasn’t a rescue.

It was a claim.

The darkness didn’t want me dead. It ...