The practitioner now stood in front of me, boot leather and mask glinting in the firelight like he’d caught some of that flame. Then he crouched, hands linked, and considered me.
“If you were truly gifted, Aether wouldn’t cause you pain. You would be able to touch it, to manipulate it, just as I can.”His gaze skipped down to my chest and the scratches I’d made there. “You are injured. But you are alive.” He sounded puzzled.
I only managed a whimper.
One of his people moved toward him and spoke softly. When she moved back to the door, the practitioner sighed.
“Unfortunately, our time has come to an end. It’s been…unusual. And I’m certain we’ll see each other again.” With that threat given, he rose, and just as suddenly as he’d appeared, he disappeared again.
I had to get out. Wren would be worried. Luna would be in danger. Carethia was on the verge of rebellion. I had to find them. I had to warn the prince.
I tried to rise, and didn’t even make it to my knees before the room tilted sideways. And once again, I fell.
Fifteen
Iwas running, the sun warm above me, making me squint in the bright light. There was a field of endless green, the clover thick as a carpet and ankle-deep. I was laughing.
“Keep going!” said the woman with the soft eyes and beautiful smile. Her hair, like mine, was long and brown and wavy. Her eyes were brown, and freckles were scattered across her cheeks. She laughed when I ran away, her image wobbling with my uncertain steps, and clapped when I came back again.
She embraced me. She smelled like lemons and sun-dried linen, and her long hair tickled my face as I fell into her arms. She was love and joy, and she loved me back.
I closed my eyes, safe in her arms. And opened them again to a nightmare.
She was older now, her face leaner with age. Her eyes were the same, but they saw nothing. She lay in the clover, her hair was streaked with red, and there was red on her face, on her body.
Blood. So much blood.
Enough to drown me, to ruin me, to haunt me forever.
A raven called, flushed from a tree by the men who drewcloser. The sounds were enormous. I wrested my hand away, pushed my hands over my ears to drown out the noise.
“Come.” A man’s voice, kind but urging. “We have to go.”
“But, Mama—” I pulled my hand away, but he drew me up. His eyes were shadowed and full of devastation, and blood was smeared across his cheek.
“We can’t help her. Not anymore.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, and we were running, his gait uneven and halting, the raven’s shadow on the ground before us, showing the way.
Sixteen
Someone was hitting me, thumping the side of my head, filling it with the noise of pounding feet and creaking armor.
I managed to lift a hand and touched my forehead. I wasn’t under attack; the banging was internal—a nauseating pulse that sent flashes of light through my closed eyelids. I rubbed my temples until the worst of the pain receded.
Something licked at my memory like the tip of a flame. Had there been a dream? I remembered sunshine and running, but then it was gone, and the world around me was quiet and still. There was no violence here, no pain, no voices of lost souls screaming for release.
My body ached, my chest burned from scratches, and my ankle felt raw where the possessed human had grabbed it. And added to that, something new. There was no Aetheric practitioner here; I knew that, at least. But there was a prick of heat in my chest, like a needle lodged in my heart.
I opened my eyes.
My head didn’t explode like harvest fireworks, so that waspromising. But for the second time today, I awoke in a place I’d never seen before.
I lay on a high and canopied bed with thick draperies stretched across the top and bunched at the posts on the corners. I sat up, and when my head stopped spinning, I eased myself to the cold stone floor. The room was large, with a vaulted ceiling supported by huge wooden beams, and a high glass window that let in streams of milky afternoon light. It smelled faintly of wax and flowers.
I was still in my clothes, but my boots had been neatly placed on a wooden step that extended along the bed frame. The bedcovers beneath me were as luxurious as the hanging draperies; my tunic looked like an old rag by comparison.
The door opened, and a figure appeared in the doorway, his face shielded by darkness.
“Stay there,” I said, and grabbed the only available weapon—my very worn boot.
