Zen slumped forward. Blood dripped from his mouth and from the wound in his chest, running in rivulets through the soil at the base of Skies’ End. The shadows in his eyes cleared, and when he looked up at her, hair slicked to his face from rain, she knew with certainty she gazed at the boy she had fallen for back in a mist-cloaked village. His lips curved into a slow, faint smile. “Better…than teacups,” he whispered. Then Zen collapsed in the mud. His eyes fluttered shut.
