The Battle of Ascension - Part 11
Zai
Zai opened her eyes. The sound of invisible birds chirping made her turn about as she realized she was sitting on the shore of a very familiar river. Behind her lay the forest and the Raven's Roost. Before her was the same river she'd woken up near time and time again in her mind. Not quite the River Rosi. More like the idea of a river as she enjoyed it. She didn't know how she found herself here of all places.
Maybe it was a fragment of the training space she'd shared with Shenmi. Maybe...
Zai felt a strange flutter in her chest. Like half a heartbeat, starting over again and again.
"Oh," she said softly as she realized that she was bleeding from a thin cut that went straight through her heart. Thick, dark arterial blood seeped from the wound as if in slow motion.
She was dying, she remembered.