CHAPTER ONE
PARIS
The darkness screamed with a thousand tortured voices.
Mine was the loudest.
Cold. So cold. Wrapped in a blanket of frozen thorns, trapped in the darkness. So lost. So broken.
Let me out!
Let me out!
Let me out!
I couldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here.
Let me out!
Let me out!
Let me out!
The blanket constricted, icy barbs burrowing into my flesh and my soul. Whispers crawled into my head, telling me I’d never be free. That I was done, done, done. Forever lost, that I should buckle and get ready for endless sorrow.
Let me out!
Let me out!
Let me out!
My eyes shot open, a strangled cry tearing from my throat, searing pain in my skull. A blaze of sunlight greeted me, forcing my eyelids closed. I kicked out in panic, sliding across something wet.
Sunlight. Not darkness. And the cold kiss of the wind upon my face, the wetness pressing against the back of my head.
Shit. Had I been dreaming?
I caught my breath, getting a grip on myself. Shivering, wet from ice.
Ice? Was I lying on ice?
The cold caress of reality slithered across my body, seeping into my bones. Eyes adjusting to the light, I blinked up at an azure sky, wisps of white cloud rolling by.
Huh?
I sat up, rubbing my eyes and scanning my surroundings, condensation puffing from my mouth with every shaky breath.
To my right sat Oreflame City’s huge Nightingale Theatre, its concrete-and-iron structure completely coated in glacial blue ice.
Great. But why was I staring at it, shivering my balls off?
A suppressing fog suffocated my brain, things not quite piecing together yet. I knew where I was but not why. I was missing something here. Something super important.
Come on, brain! Wake up!
Up ahead was a half-collapsed bridge, the fallen half of the gray concrete structure sticking out of the frozen river at a jaunty angle.
West Bridge?
