KNOX’S POV

I wake up to pain.

Not the sharp, clean kind that tells you where you’re hurt and how badly.

This is something deeper, something that’s crawled into my bones and made itself at home, throbbing in time with my heartbeat like a second pulse made entirely of fire.

My skull feels like someone’s taken an axe to it from the inside, and when I try to open my eyes, the light stabs at them.

Ember.

The name tears through the fog before anything else. Before I remember where I am or how I got here or why my body feels like it’s been dragged through hell and back....