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It was as disorienting a sight as Nicci had ever seen. She felt as if she were drowning. Panic welled up in her at the feeling of not being able to breathe fast enough, of trying to get the air she needed. Her burning lungs were unable to work any faster than the rest of her.
When Nicci focused her gaze, the figure of the woman was gone. It occurred to her that her eyes, too, were too slow. The hallway was empty again. It seemed that her focus could not keep up with the movement.
Nicci thought that maybe she was having some kind of hallucination brought on by the spells she had cast, by the power of Orden she had tapped into. She wondered if it could be some kind of aftereffect of the spells. Maybe it was Orden itself come to claim her for tampering with such forbidden powers.
That had to be it—something to do with all the dangerous things she had conjured.
The woman appeared again, as if floating up through the murky deep, emerging suddenly into view out of the dark abyss.
This time Nicci could clearly see the woman’s austere, angular features.
Blanched blue eyes fixed on Nicci as if there was nothing else in her world. That scrutiny touched Nicci’s very soul with icy dread. The woman’s eyes were so pale that they seemed as if they had to be sightless, but Nicci knew that this woman could see just fine, not only in the light, but also in the blackest cave, or under a rock where the light of day never touched her.
The woman smiled as wicked a grin as Nicci had ever seen. It was the smile of someone who had no fear but enjoyed causing it, a woman who knew she had everything under her mastery. It was a smile that sent a slow shiver through Nicci.
And then the woman was gone.
In the distance more of Zedd’s magic sparked and sputtered briefly before it died out.
Nicci struggled to move, but the world was too thick, the way it sometimes felt in those terrible dreams she had, dreams where she struggled to move but simply couldn’t despite how hard she tried. It was the dream where she was trying to run from Jagang. He was always close, coming for her, reaching for her. He was like death itself, intent on the most unimaginable cruelty, as he came toward her. She always wanted desperately to run in those dreams but, despite extraordinary effort, her legs wouldn’t move nearly fast enough.
Those dreams always put her in a state of trembling panic. It was a dream that made death so real she could taste its terror.
She’d had that dream one time in camp. Richard had been there. He woke her, asking what was wrong. She gasped back tears as she told him. He cupped her face and told her that it was only a dream and she was all right. She would have given anything to have had him hold her in his arms and tell her that she was safe, but he didn’t. Still, his hand on her face, covered with both of hers, and his gentle words, his empathy, had been a comfort that calmed her terror.
This, though, was no dream.
Nicci tried to gasp a breath, to call out to Zedd, but could do neither. She tried to call her Han, her gift, but couldn’t seem to connect to it. It was as if her gift was impossibly fast and she was impossibly slow. The two wouldn’t mesh.
The woman, her flesh the pallid color of the freshly dead, her hair and dress as black as the underworld, was suddenly right there, right beside Nicci.
The woman’s arm floated out, reaching through the swirling black cloth. Parched flesh stretched tightly over her knuckles served to emphasize the skeleton beneath. Her bony fingers brushed along the underside of Nicci’s jaw. It was a haughty touch, an arrogant act of triumph.
At the touch, the vibration in Nicci’s chest felt as if it might tear her apart.
The woman laughed a hollow, slow, burbling underwater laugh that echoed painfully through the stone halls of the Keep.
Nicci knew without doubt what the woman wanted, what she had come for. Nicci tried desperately to ignite her power, to grab the woman, to lunge, to do anything to stop her, but she could do nothing. Her power seemed impossibly distant, crackling so far away that it would take forever to reach it.
As the finger brushed along the length of Nicci’s jaw, the woman was gone again, vanishing gently back into the dark depths.
The next time she appeared, she was back at the brass-clad doors standing open to the room with the box. The woman drifted through the doorway, her feet never touching the ground, her dress washing lightly all around her.
Again she vanished out of Nicci’s focus.
The next time she appeared, she was between the room and Nicci.
She had the box of Orden under an arm.
As that terrible laughter echoed through Nicci’s mind, the world melted into blackness.
CHAPTER 6
Rachel didn’t know who the horse belonged to, and she didn’t really care. She wanted it.
She had been running all night and she was exhausted. She had never stopped to consider why she might be running. It somehow didn’t seem important. It mattered only that she keep going, keep making progress. She needed to hurry. She needed to keep going.
She needed to go faster.
She needed the horse.
She was certain of the direction in which she had to go. She didn’t know why she felt so certain about it. She didn’t give that matter any serious thought. It remained only a question from somewhere deep in the back of her mind that never completely surfaced into full conscious concern.
As she crouched in the dry, brittle brush, she tried to remain still as a shadow as she figured out what to do. It was hard to stay still because she was so cold. She tried not to shiver for fear of giving herself away. She wanted to rub her arms, but she knew not to because any movement might draw attention. As cold as she was, what concerned her the most was getting the horse.
Whoever owned the horse didn’t seem to be nearby at the moment. At least, if he was, she couldn’t see him. He might be sleeping in the long, brown grass and be too low for her to see where he was. He might be off scouting.
Or, he might be waiting, watching for her, maybe with an arrow nocked and at the ready so that once she bolted from cover he could take aim and shoot her down. As scary as such a thought was, her fear of such a thing couldn’t compare to her need to keep going, her need to hurry.
Rachel checked the sun off through the thick stand of trees, checking her bearings, making sure she knew the direction she needed to go. She surveyed her choices of escape routes. There was a wide path, not quite a road, that would be a good place for a fast getaway. There was also a shallow, gravel-bottomed stream that ran through part of the open meadow. On the other side of the meadow the stream joined the road and ran beside it as both made their way southeast through the trees.
The sun, low, huge-looking, and red, hung just above the horizon. The color matched the color of the scratches all over her arms from running through the brush.
Before Rachel realized it, before she had finished thinking it through, her legs were moving. They almost seemed to have a mind of their own. Only a few steps out of the brush she was running, bolting out across the open ground toward the horse.
Out of the corner of her eye Rachel caught sight of the man as he suddenly sat up in the tall grass. Just as she had suspected, he had been sleeping. With his leather vest and studded straps holding knives, he looked like one of those Imperial Order men. He appeared to be alone. Probably on a scouting mission. That’s what Chase had taught her. Imperial Order troops out alone were likely scouts.
She didn’t really care who he was. She wanted the horse. She thought that maybe she should be afraid of the man, but she wasn’t. She was afraid only of not getting t
he horse, of not hurrying.
The man threw his blanket aside as he shot to his feet. He scrambled into a dead run. He was coming fast, but Rachel’s legs had grown long over the summer and she was a fast runner. The soldier yelled at her. She paid him no never mind as she raced toward the bay mare.
The man threw something at her. She saw it streak by over her left shoulder. It was a knife. At such a distance she knew that it had been a foolish throw—a throw-and-pray, as Chase called it. He taught her to focus, to aim. He’d taught her a lot about knives. She also knew that a running target was difficult to hit with a knife.
She was right. The knife missed her by a good margin. With a soft thunk it stuck in a fallen log lying along the way between her and the horse. She yanked the knife out of the rotting log as she ran by and stuck it through her belt as she slowed.
The knife was hers now. Chase had taught her to take the enemy’s weapons whenever possible and be prepared to use them, especially if the weapon was superior to what she had. He had taught her that in a survival situation she had to use what ever was at hand.
Gulping air, she ran under the horse’s nose, snatching up the loose ends of the reins, but they were tied to a branch of the fallen log. Her fingers worked frantically to undo the tight knot, but they were numb with cold. They slipped on the leather as she clawed at it. She wanted to scream with frustration, but instead she kept tugging, working the knot. It seemed to take forever to get it loose. As soon as the reins were free she gathered them together in one hand.
It was then that she noticed the saddle not far away. She glanced up as the man yelled again, calling her a name. He was coming fast. She wouldn’t have near enough time to even think about saddling the horse. Saddlebags—probably full of supplies—leaned against the saddle.
She slipped her arm under the flat piece of leather connecting the two halves of the saddlebag and ducked under the startled horse’s neck.
