Chapter 23 · Footprints Going West

Ivy couldn't move.

The footprints burned into the ground in front of her. Her footprints. The ones she'd leave when she died.

They led west.

She knelt in the dirt outside the collapsed temple, hands shaking, blood still wet on her palms from the seal. The prints glowed like coals in her vision. Each step perfectly clear. The way her boot would drag on the left. The way her right foot would land lighter. She knew these prints. They were hers. And they ended somewhere in the forest with a name burning at their terminus.

MORRIGAN.

She'd never heard it before.

"Ivy." Cole's voice came from somewhere far away. "Ivy, we need to move."

She couldn't look at him. If she looked away from the prints, they might disappear. Or worse—they might multiply. Spread. Show her everyone's death-tracks, the way they had in the temple when the seal was breaking and her gift was tearing her apart from the inside.

"Ivy." Closer now. A hand on her shoulder.

She flinched. "Don't."

"The temple's down. Warren's still breathing. We need to—"

"I can see them." Her voice didn't sound like hers. Too flat. Too hollow. "My footprints. Going west.