Ashlynn woke up screaming.
"Jocey, nooo! Nyri, help me save her!"
The sound tore out of her throat, raw and ragged in the dark of the room, and she came out from under the furs clawing at her own chest with both hands, certain she would find her ribs pried open and the roots still feeding, certain her fingers would close around the wet pulse of her own exposed heart.
But there was nothing. Her chest was whole beneath her nightclothes. Her ribs were sound. There was no blood on her hands, no coppery blood on her tongue, only the cold sweat that had soaked through to the furs and the wild thundering of her own heart, beating so hard and so loud that for one terrible moment she couldn't feel the echo of Nyrielle's pulse within her at all.
