EMBER’S POV

The dove’s beak snaps open, and it lets out a painful, hawking shriek—a wet, bubbling rasp of pure agony that no bird should be able to make.

I try to drop it, but I can’t let go. My fingers are paralysed, locked around it by the sheer force of the gold.

The air scorches, thick with the smell of burnt ozone and roasting feathers. The dead grass around my knees bursts into smoking flames.

I am pouring my life out into a dead thing, and the pressure is literally shaking it apart, its hollow bones cracking and pulverising as it twists into a shape that should not exist....