Drawing in each short, shallow breath as my senses slowly, painstakingly pieced themselves back together, I stared up at a dark sea full...full of dazzling, twinkling lights. And there were so many of them. Thousands. Millions. Numerous and countless constellations of luminous, celestial bodies, and I could see them. All of them. I saw them in a way I had long since forgotten, with a clarity that proved my memories of them hadn’t done them justice. They were so beautiful, so endless. Tears filled my eyes as I lay there, overcome by the simple splendor of a night sky full of stars, each one representing infinite wishes and boundless dreams. I didn’t dare blink, not even as each and every one of the lights dimmed until they were nothing but blurred specks of distant light, until that, too, faded beyond my sight. I closed my eyes then, instinctually knowing that I’d been given a gift greater than I could probably ever realize. One last clear memory that would never fade, and I suspected I would never see the stars again.
Zayne.
That was the first rational, coherent thought that took form and made sense to me.
Opening my eyes, I didn’t look at the sky as I forced my sore body to move, to respond to the commands my brain was firing off. My muscles and nerves were slow to act, but once they seemed to get with the program, I clambered to my knees and hands. Every fiber of my being focused on the shadowy shape several feet from me.
Zayne.
He was on his hands and knees, like me, his head bowed. I could still make out the shape of wings draped along his shoulders, resting against the ground.
He was alive.
Trembling, I almost broke down right there, but somehow I managed to keep it together. He was still alive and breathing, but I had no idea what kind of state he was in.
I inched forward, squinting. His hair had fallen forward, shielding his face. I opened my mouth to say his name, but a childish sort of fear silenced my tongue.
What if it didn’t work? What if it somehow did something worse?
He moved then, his large body shuddering. Slowly, he lifted his head. Strands of hair slid back from his face. His eyes were closed, and his features still seemed clearer to me, even with the limited light, but this time I knew it was the luminous glow to his skin, the grace that hummed under the surface. Those wings twitched and heaved, lifting. Grace still streaked the feathers like currents of electricity. His eyes opened, hazy and unfocused, but they were still that unreal shade of blue as they focused on me. Cleared. I couldn’t breathe as I tensed, desperately trying to prepare myself for...for anything.
“Trin?” he whispered hoarsely, and a ragged breath punched out of me. “Trin.”
I started to move, to crawl forward, but somehow I ended up scuttling back a foot or more. “Are you...?” I cleared my throat. “Are you Zayne?”
Those beautiful wings rose slightly and then lowered, and his eyes closed briefly. “It’s me.”
Pressure clamped down on my chest, twisting and squeezing as a hundred different emotions erupted inside me, flooding me. Hope and yearning crashed into uncertainty and even fear. What if this was some kind of trick? He hadn’t sounded like that when he said my name before. In the back of my mind, I recognized that, but I realized then I hadn’t really prepared myself for this actually working. I was afraid that this wasn’t real. Sorrow tangled with joy, and my body felt weak.
“I’m—” He straightened as if to rise.
I jerked back, falling onto my butt. It seemed like I had no control over my movements. A conflicting mess of emotions ruled me, and I was too afraid of the crushing disappointment if I allowed hope to seize me.
Zayne had halted, and in the chaos of my mind, I knew that meant something. “I’m not going to hurt you. I could never hurt you—” He cut himself off, his shoulders tensing. “But I did. I hurt you. I had...” He rocked back, still on his knees as he looked down at his hands. “I hurt you—”
“No. You didn’t hurt me,” I whispered, thinking that it actually sounded like him. There was inflection in his tone. Warmth.
“I didn’t?” His hands closed. “I remember.” Those wings lifted again, startling me as they stretched high and away. He tore his gaze from his hands then and looked over his shoulder. There was a curse under his breath as the breeze ruffled some of the smaller feathers, exposing the streaks of grace. “I...I keep forgetting that they’re there. They don’t feel like my old ones. Neither does shifting. Most things don’t feel the same.”
He looked at me again, and the glow of his skin pulsed intently, causing me to flinch. His feathered wings folded back, tucking inward, and then they were...they were simply gone, as if they’d seeped into his skin—into his back—or vanished. The luminous golden shine faded, and he looked more like...well, more like Zayne and not the psychotic Fallen.