The Shadows Have No Face || ??????

Sweet, sweet Faceless.

I couldn't see anything ahead of me but the blackness of an endless room. But I could hear it, I could feel it. Like oil on my skin, on my face. The scent of death was heavy in my lungs.

Wings of blue. Eyes of gold.

I couldn't move my legs. My feet were glued to the burning hot ground. Bare and cold, tingling with a need to run as far away as possible. It was all I could think of, all I could do—run. Run.

Silver sister. Dead eyed child.

It felt like the skin on my feet was ripped away. The entire bottoms of my feet tore away as I pulled out of this spot. Bleeding, stinging. Running.

Come to me. Find me. Know me. Love me. See me burn.

I couldn't stop running. Even though I wanted to. Even though I cried because of how painful it was. The ground was on fire, my feet bloody and aching. There was no wind on my face, no end to this room. Endless black and heat and pain, with nothing but the sound of the cauldron and its humming of death behind me.

I fell. Not to the ground, but through it. Endlessly falling with no wind to scratch me. I couldn't stop it, couldn't help it.

Run. Run to me. Find me.

There was light beneath me, so bright I couldn't keep my eyes open. Warm sunlight spilled across my face and body in rays of golden glitter. I stopped falling but didn't feel myself hit the ground. My hands dug into the sand as I sat up and looked around.

It was a small island surrounded by nothing. There were no clouds in the sky to block the burning sun shining from straight above. The waves crashed and pushed millions of tiny broken shells up to my feet and sunk into the wet, sandy shore.

I looked behind me and felt my body lose gravity. Everything in me stilled. Everything in me died. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't supposed to be here, wasn't ever supposed to see this place.

Come home, sweet Faceless.

I woke screaming. Sweat slid down my forehead and made my palms sticky. For a moment, I thought I was dying. I couldn't breathe—couldn't remember how. Was I supposed to swallow air—or throw it out?

A hand slid across my back, making me jolt. I took quick breaths, unable to stop my heart from pounding. It felt like I just ran for miles in the endless heat. How, how was I supposed to breathe?

Azriel turned my face to look at him and pressed his hand to my chest. He took a deep breath and made me follow suit. Inhale. Exhale. I repeated it in my head with each breath we took until I learned how to breathe again and my heart saw it was in no danger.

"What is it?" Azriel asked, brushing the hair from my face.

I ran a hand down an arm to try smoothing out the goosebumps. My hands were shaking—they shouldn't be shaking. Why were they shaking? What was happening?

I shook my head. "I don't know—something bad."

The sun was just rising over the horizon, casting bright golden light in a line across the highest tops of buildings and hills. It was quiet, the kind of silence that came with the morning. But it wasn't right. Something about it wasn't right.

It was too quiet.

The realization hit and made my stomach drop and my heart rise to my throat. I jumped out of bed and pulled on the closest clothes I could find. I grabbed my sword from the dresser and ran out of the room before Azriel could stop me.