POV: Seraphina

The bond was killing me. I felt Maya slipping away, her consciousness fading like water through my fingers. The magical connection the Mother Below had forced between us pulled taut, stretching thin, threatening to snap. And when it snapped, I'd die too. That was the deal. Bound together until humanity's threat was ended. If one died, both died.

I should have been angry. I should have been calculating how to break the bond, how to save myself. But all I felt was terror. ...