The guard looks up and seethes, raising an arm toward me. Rocks erupt from the earth like clawed fingers, bursting from their blackened surface in search of their next victim. One of the rocks scrapes into my back, ripping at my flesh with ease. The heat of a fresh wound makes me stumble, knees colliding against the ravaged surface.

Everything inside of me screams to get up, to keep fighting. And so I do, even when my knees scorch like broken glass and my muscles ache with bruises.

I charge toward the guard, who pulls two swords from his belt, twirling them in his hands like propellers eager for the kill. My sword collides with his, metal against metal. I swing upward to block, leaping over his next attack and barely missing his blade. I jab toward his leg, but he’s too quick for me. I’m exhausted by his movements and the dust that kicks up around us, but he never tires, his body shifting like he’s enacting a dance.

To him, this is just a game.

His swords crash down against mine with full force, and my arms tremble beneath the weight of his power. And then my blade shatters, bits of twinkling metal spilling around me as I desperately fling myself out of the way.

One of his swords closes down over my left arm, severing it inches above the elbow.

I howl, and blood sprays.

I fall to my knees, searching desperately for a weapon in the sea of body parts left to the wind, but the pain is consuming me. I can’t think—can’t breathe.

All I feel is the brittle and burning reach of death nearby.

And then it grabs hold of me, wearing the face of a Legion Guard. He lifts me by the neck, holding me like a rag doll in his fist, and plunges his other hand into my chest.

The last thing I remember is seeing my heart removed from my body.

And somehow, despite more than a hundred deaths, they’ve found a new way to kill me.

The world swirls like a kaleidoscope, and when I focus my sight, I find Gil and Theo in front of me.

Sweat pours from my face and down the back of my neck. I feel the sick rising in my throat, and a desperation to lean over and vomit until there’s nothing left of me takes over.

Gasping for air, I choke on the tears building up from within, terror screeching through my mind. I clutch my chest, feeling the blood-curdling ache where the phantom hand removed my heart.

Gil’s heart.

He showed me his memories. An Exchange he thought I needed to see.

“You had no right to put that in my head. To make me see it,” I cough, tears spilling down my cheeks.