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I jumped, leaving my heart behind while my soul went to die.
Chapter Forty-Five
Gone
Rythos
Wood pressed against my cheek, just as cold as my sluggish heart methodically pumping rot through my heavy limbs.
I did not move, unsure if my body would answer as I gathered hazy thoughts through an aching head.
I rolled over with a groan, wincing against the grey light of morning bleeding through the fog above me.
What the fuck happened?
Solas was sprawled on the ground across from me, one arm twisted beneath him. Aldric lay slumped against an overturned barrel, his head hanging forward against his chest.
Helion was groaning next to me, trying and failing to push himself into a sitting position.
And Lyra—
I froze.
“Lyra?” My voice scraped out in a rasp.
I pushed myself onto one elbow, nausea rolling through me as the world tilted. I just needed to lay my eyes on her, to know that she was okay.
Her cup sat on the planks, full and untouched.
Mine lay empty on its side beside me, as though it had fallen when I did.
My memory returned in broken pieces, clicking together through my head as panic flared.
Dinner.
Her laughter.
Her fingers threaded through mine.
The strange bitterness in the rum that I put down to age.
Her face above me as my body gave out.
My heart slammed painfully against the rot in my chest.
“No!” I yelled, slamming my hand down weakly against the deck.
I could feel her faintly through the bond, alive. But her feelings were muted as if she were too far away to reach.
Panic cut through the fog in my mind and I dragged myself onto my knees.
My shadows spilled weakly across the planks, searching with me, slipping beneath barrels and curling along the railings as though they might somehow find what the bond could not.
Helion sat upright next to me, dragging both hands through his hair with a groan.
I forced myself to my feet, but my legs gave way beneath me and my knees slammed into the wooden planks.
“Take it easy,” Helion said, watching me as though every breath might be my last.
