If I could find the one that held some of her innate abilities, I might channel them. Lucia had suggested it was possible when she’d trained me the last few days. Hell, before realizing the vuk’s blood had influenced the oath, she’d believed all my new gifts came from Seren.
But I needed to concentrate.
“Cover me,” I yelled at Seth.
Then I dropped low, couching between his and Tara’s legs.
Clammy, dead fingers reached for me, clawing at my face.
I ignored the scrapes of their broken, jagged fingernails raking against my cheek and forehead.
Concentrate.
My mind traveled to that shared space of our bond, the screams and hisses and stench fading away.
A twilit glade unfolds around me, the trees shadowed shapes, a liminal space devoid of color and light. Seren is here, the warmth of her, her every thought, humming through transparent leaves on grey branches.
I step forward. The ground beneath my feet shifts, sensing my intrusion, pushing me back. A crack forms in the earth.
I kneel, pressing my fingertips to the fissure. A pulse, below my fingertips.
“Seren, they’re going to die. I need your ice wielding, there’s no time to explain. Show me where to find it.”
“Rykr! We need you!” Tara’s cry shattered the quiet.
Another crack spread, the fissure widening like a stream. Shimmering strands, white and blue light rather than water, filter through my fingertips. Strands of power. Threads of fate.
Will there be consequences if I take from her like this?
“Fuck!” Seth yelled.
Waiting, questioning the consequences will kill us. And my death will mean hers, too.
I dive into the stream.
Chapter 24
Seren
A strangled gasp left me, the cold, lifeless eyes of a skinwraith flashing through my mind.
Above me, skeletal branches swayed in the dissipating storm, snow swirling through the air. I was on my back, on the ground, and I had no idea how I’d gotten here.
Darya leaned over me, Ciaran beside her.
I grasped my cheek, expecting to find blood there. Pain lanced through me, but my fingers came away clean.
Rykr.
I could feel him, sense him, as though he’d been right beside me. “Rykr, are you there?” I called out to him.
Nothing.
Both Ciaran and Darya were speaking, but I only heard a fierce ringing. My body was numb, strangely weak.
Ciaran lifted me and started forward. The rhythm of his hurried steps rocked me as I rested my head against his chest, shivering violently, unable to summon the energy to open my eyes again.
“Rykr.”
