Maggie's sleep was a total absence, a leaden void that lasted until a dull, tenacious pain pulled her to the surface. She opened her eyes to a low sky, the grey of ashes. The smell of damp earth, dried blood, and burnt sap filled the air, a scent of end and beginning mingled.
Her hand was still clenched around Elisa's. The young woman was asleep, but her breathing was regular, deep. The runes on her arms had lost their turquoise glow, but they hadn't disappeared. They seemed to have become embedded in her skin, like ancestral tattoos of a deep black that contrasted with her pallor. Looking closer, Maggie now saw a dizzying complexity in them, patterns that evoked both constellations and root systems.
Tonar kept watch, leaning against a dead tree, his reddened eyes constantly scanning the edge of the clearing. Around them, the survivors moved with the mechanical slowness of exhaustion. They were burying the dead. Gathering the little equipment that had survived.
