The forest swallowed us whole.
Moonlight dripped through the branches in trembling silver streams, barely enough to see where the horses were stepping.
The air was damp and cold, thick with the scent of moss and night.
Otto rode slightly ahead of me, silent, alert… every muscle of his body firm like a spring.
The events of the last few hours still pounding in my head.
The screams of the sirens and the moment they could have attacked us.
How terrifying it had been still haunted me.
And now i tried my very best to stay awake.
I tried.
But exhaustion weighed on my eyelids like heavy stones.
My body felt bruised inside and out.
My mind kept replaying everything at once, Pearl disappearing into the black water, the sirens racing after us, being thrown into the cell, the Queen sentencing me, Hildegard's sacrifice.
It was too much and my body was overwhelmed by what it had faced.
My eyes closed without my permission.
Just one second.
Just one blink.
