Lyra
The sight of Kael standing over me made me gasp, my body moving away from him on instinct. I scrambled backwards on the bed, chest heaving.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out.
Kael’s face pinched. “I heard you crying out, so I came in to check on you. Sue me.” He sighed and glanced at his watch. “Anyway, you overslept. Hurry up and get ready. We have to drive to Ravencrest.”
Ravencrest.
The word shot through me like claws shredding the fabric of reality as I watched Kael’s tense form stalk away. Blinking rapidly, I looked around the room I now found myself in—a small but cozy space with soft pastel yellow walls and polished hardwood floors, one corner dominated by the twin-sized bed that I now sat on.
There was a small writing desk under the window, lace curtains gently billowing in the breeze. Posters of various bands and books and movies lining the walls. A dresser with a mirror above it.
And in the reflection of that mirror, staring back at me, was a face I hadn’t seen in years.
With shaking fingers, I lifted my hand to touch my cheek. My fingertips touched soft, freckled skin. Blue eyes blinked, widened in shock. Chestnut hair was frazzled, partially undone from its braid from a night of restless sleep.
I was alive.
And not only that…
I was seventeen again.
It didn’t make any sense, and yet somehow, I knew it was true. I recalled the past six years with sickening clarity, too much clarity for it all to be a dream. I remembered the five years of our marriage, my twenty-third birthday, and finally, my death.
All of it.
