The transition from the screaming chaos of the medical wing was not a fade, it was a violent, absolute decapitation of the senses. One moment, Amara was drowning in the metallic tang of her own blood, the harsh fluorescent lights of the Dravik Estate searing her retinas while Elio shouted orders that sounded like they were underwater. The next, there was nothing.
No pain. No cold. No scent of antiseptic or copper.
Amara stood in a vast, horizonless expanse of white. It wasn't a room, and it wasn't the sky. It was the absence of everything. She looked down at her hands. They were clean, the deep, stubborn stains of crimson that had worked their way into her cuticles in the back of the car were gone. She was wearing the simple white shift she had been given at the orphanage, a memory of a time before the mark, before Darien, and before the world had decided she was the mate of the mighty dragon.
