Noctis ran until his legs stopped being legs and became only pain.

  The forest swallowed sound. No birds. No wind. Just his own ragged breathing and the wet slap of bare feet against roots and moss.

  Thorns caught his shirt, tearing small strips away. One scraped across his cheek—sharp enough to sting, not deep enough to bleed. He didn’t stop to touch it.

  He didn’t know which way was home anymore.

  Home was fire.

  Home was soldiers with their hands on her, dragging her across broken glass, her head lolling as her blue essence flickered and died like a candle pinched out.

  Home was gone.

  His foot snagged on a root. He pitched forward, knee slamming into stone hidden beneath leaves. A small, bright sound escaped him—more surprise than pain. For a moment he just lay there, curled on his side, arms wrapped tight around himself.

  If he made himself small enough, maybe the dark wouldn’t find him.

  Maybe whatever was watching would pass him by.

  He pressed his forehead to damp earth and tried to breathe quietly.

  It didn’t work.

  The sob tore out of him, loud and ugly, echoing through trees that didn’t care.

  “Mum,” he whispered, throat raw. “Mum, I’m cold.”

  Silence answered.

  He tried again, louder this time, voice cracking. “Mum, you’ll come back, right?”

  The forest gave him nothing.

  His chest hitched. Tears came hot and fast, soaking into the dirt beneath his cheek. He cried until his ribs ached, until his face was slick and his nose wouldn’t stop running, until the sobs turned into hiccups that hurt worse than the scrapes on his skin.

  She wasn’t coming.

  She was never coming.

  Something moved behind the nearest tree.

  A growl—low, deep, vibrating through the ground beneath him—rumbled from everywhere and nowhere at once.

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  Noctis went rigid.

  His breath stopped. His hands curled into fists, nails biting palms.

  The growl came again, closer this time. Wet breathing. The crack of a twig.

  Run, his mind screamed. Get up. Move.

  But his body wouldn’t listen. Fear pinned him flat, muscles locking like stone. Shame flooded him—hot and sick—because he’d promised to stay inside, and he’d broken that promise, and now she was gone and it was his fault, his fault, and the thing in the dark was coming because of him.

  He squeezed his eyes shut so hard colors bloomed behind his lids.

  Red and blue, swirling together like they had when the ball flew, like they had when everything started to fall apart.

  He didn’t want them.

  He didn’t want any of it—the colors, the power, the wrongness that lived in his skin. If he could tear it all out, rip it from his chest and throw it away, he would. If he could go back, go back, go back—

  The growl rose to a snarl.

  And something inside him broke.

  Pain lanced through his skull—bright and sharp as shattered glass. The red and blue essences flared wild, thrashing like animals caught in a snare. Then something else stirred beneath them. Something cold. Something that didn’t have a color because it ate color, swallowed light, drank sound.

  Darkness.

  It spread from his chest in a wave, silent and absolute.

  The growling stopped mid breath.

  As if something had swallowed the sound.

  The forest—what was left of it—went utterly, perfectly still.

  Noctis’s mind went blank.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  When he opened his eyes, the sky was pale with dawn.

  “Mum?”

  His voice came out small. Hoarse.

  No answer.

  He blinked. His face felt stiff, crusted with dried tears and dirt. His body ached in a distant, hollow way, like it belonged to someone else.

  “Mum, I’m—”

  The memory hit him all at once.

  Fire. Soldiers. Her rounded ears. Her body going limp.

  Tears spilled fresh down his cheeks, hot against cold skin.

  Then he looked around.

  The trees were gone.

  Not fallen. Not burned.

  Gone.

  He sat at the center of a perfect circle—wide enough that he couldn’t touch the edge even if he stretched—where forest had been and now there was only bare earth. Smooth. Empty. As if something had reached down and scooped it all away, roots and soil and living things, leaving nothing but a hollow in the world.

  Noctis stared.

  His hands trembled in his lap. He turned them over slowly, looking at his palms. They were scraped and dirty, fingernails rimmed with mud. No red essence. No blue. Just skin.

  Just him.

  He didn’t understand.

  He stood on shaking legs and began to walk.

  His eyes fixed forward, steady and glassy, not quite seeing.

  His stomach twisted, growling loud enough to hear, but he didn’t feel hunger. Didn’t feel the cuts on his feet or the throb in his knee or the cold air on his bare arms.

  His chest felt hollow, scraped raw and left open.

  One foot in front of the other. Blood smeared across stone where his heel came down. He didn’t notice.

  The forest thinned.

  Light filtered brighter through the canopy. A road appeared ahead—dirt, rutted with cart tracks.

  His vision swam. The ground tilted.

  His knees buckled.

  He hit the dirt hard, cheek pressed to cool earth, and couldn’t find the strength to move.

  Somewhere far away, footsteps approached.

  Boots.

  Heavy. Unhurried.

  He forced his eyes open—just a crack—and saw black leather stopping inches from his face.

  Then his eyes slid shut.

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