Liona's POV
I wasn't a fighter.
I had never pretended to be one. Back home my parents were healers. Respected people. Our house always smelled like herbs and medicines and the quiet confidence of people who knew exactly what they were doing in the world. I grew up learning how to help people feel better. Not how to fight things that would not die in a cursed forest in the dark.
But here I was.
The rope around my wrist was the most comforting thing I had felt since we entered this forest. It connected me to Silas on my left and a warrior on my right, and as long as I could feel it pulling slightly with every movement around me, I knew the people I was tied to were still alive and still there.
Azura was not on the rope.
She had been separated from us when everything broke apart, and the fog came rushing in, and I had heard her voice for a few seconds after, and then nothing. Just white. Just the sounds of everything happening around me and the space where she should have been.
