IVY'S POV
The pressure vanished so suddenly as she loosened her grip against my throat, it felt unreal. I collapsed forward, my body folding in on itself as air tore violently back into my lungs.
The first breath burned like fire. The second hurt even worse. By the third, I was coughing uncontrollably, each gasp scraping my throat raw as though I had swallowed broken glass. My hands flew to my neck, fingers trembling as they pressed against the swollen, throbbing skin. It pulsed under my touch tender,bruised, and painfully alive—a vivid reminder of how close I had come to never breathing again.
Behind me, I heard movement.
"It… it was a mistake," Seraphina rasped.
The word didn't settle right. It scraped something raw inside me—but beneath that, another thought pushed through the panic, sharp and unsettling. The herbs!
