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⊹ Book 1 of the Aldergrove Duology ⊹
After being told he has only six months left to live, Clementine decides to track down his sister's murderers, leading him to Aldergrove A...
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A warm hand caressed Clementine's ice-cold skin. He wasn't sure where he was or if he was even alive. He lay in endless darkness, suspended in the still, silent air. He didn't feel any sort of worry or desperation. No, this relaxation...he had craved something like this for so long. Quiet. Calm. Nothing to care about. Nothing to worry about. Just him and the dark.
But it wasn't over yet. It couldn't be. He still had a job to do—he hadn't finished what he'd sworn to do before he let the dark take him. But he just felt so tired. He'd done enough, right? He'd killed some of the Ravenblood; that was better than nothing, wasn't it?
No, it wasn't. If he didn't kill them all, they'd grow up, have children, and the cycle would never end. More people would suffer the same fate as he and Anette did. Hundreds—thousands. And he wasn't going to let his sister have died for nothing.
He couldn't give up. Not yet.
Not yet.
The warmth on his hand began to spread up his arm. He focused on that. The warmth, the feeling of belonging it gave him. He knew he had to go to wherever that warmth was coming from...and as it spread over his shoulders and through his chest, his struggling, stifled heart began to beat as it once had.
An echo of a voice shuffled through the dark. He wasn't sure whose it was, but it was calling his name. So, he closed his eyes, focusing on the warmth, the voice, and his desperation to finish what he'd started.
The comforting warmth spread throughout his entire, once-cold body; his stiff limbs started to respond to his desire to move, and when he gradually opened his eyes, he found himself staring up at the mural-covered ceiling of his academy bedroom.
"Clem?"
His sights shifted to the direction the voice came from, and that was where he found Sebastien sitting at his bedside. The white-haired kid stared down at him, his golden eyes gleaming in the dark. Sebastien then stood up, gazing at him with an expression Clementine had never seen on his face before: relief. And it was he who was grasping Clementine's hand, too.
"Hey," Sebastien said, leaning closer.
It took him a moment...but he found his voice. "What...what the hell happened?" But it was all coming back to him. The party, the drink...he was poisoned. How was he alive?
"How do you feel?" Sebastien asked.
Clementine grunted, trying to sit up, but his aching, throbbing body kept him where he was.
"Don't try to move," Sebastien insisted, placing his hand on his chest.
It was then that he noticed he was wrapped rather tightly in several blankets; the curtains were pinned shut with several hairclips, keeping any light from outside seeping in, and the only light that was within the room came from the lantern on his desk.
