Sienna Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 11 of 11

Sienna made it through three more shifts before the exhaustion started turning the edges of her vision soft. She ignored it the way she'd ignored the bleeding, the ache in her ribs, the way her hands trembled when she gripped the practice sword. The roster was full now, names written in beside hers, but she kept adding herself to the overnight watches. Someone had to stand the wall. She climbed the old watch tower stairs before dawn on the fourth day, each step heavier than the last. Her legs felt distant, like they belonged to someone else. At the top platform she gripped the railing and scanned the treeline, looking for movement that wouldn't come. Below the tower, someone had planted marigolds in the dirt near the base—bright orange and yellow blooms that caught the first light. She'd walked past them every shift without noticing. Now they pulled at something in her chest, the color too vivid, too alive. They looked like the flowers Garrett used to pick for Lissa during rest stops, the ones that wilted in her pack before she could press them. Sienna's vision blurred. She blinked hard and turned back to the forest. The ground tilted without warning. Her knees buckled and she reached for the railing but her hand missed. The wooden planks rushed up to meet her and then she was lying on her side, staring at the lantern posts through the gaps in the floor. She tried to stand but her body wouldn't answer. Footsteps pounded up the stairs—someone shouting her name. Hands rolled her onto her back, checked her pulse. She wanted to tell them she was fine, that she'd be at her post in a minute, but the words wouldn't form. The last thing she saw before the darkness came was the morning sky above the tower, empty and pale, with no fog left to watch for.