"Not today," I rasped.
I didn't retract the bridge. Iranon it.
I sprinted onto my own projection. It was a bizarre sensation, running on a surface that was alsome. It felt like running inside my own veins. The golden light hummed under my boots.
The ash hand slammed down behind me, shattering the bank where I had just been standing. The shockwave traveled through the bridge, nearly knocking me off.
I stumbled, falling to one knee.
The pain blinded me. My metal skin was glowing terrifyingly bright now, the gold turning to white. I could hear the lattice cracking.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
"Don't break," I begged the metal. "Please don't break."
I forced myself up. I was ten yards away. Five.
The suction increased. The Devourer realized its meal was escaping. The bridge began to dissolve from the starting point, the golden light turning to grey smoke. The road was disappearing beneath my heels.
I gathered the last of my strength and lunged.
I hit the far bank hard, my shoulder slamming into the obsidian.
The bridge vanished instantly, snapping back into my arm with a recoil that felt like being struck by lightning.
I tumbled, rolling across the sharp stones, and came to a stop against a pair of boots.
I lay there, gasping, unable to move. My arm was smoking. The violet runes were dark, completely drained. My flesh side felt numb, dead weight.
Hands grabbed me. Not the cold, grasping hands of the river, but warm, frantic hands.
"I've got you," a voice whispered. Kaelen's heat surrounded me.
He pulled me up, dragging me away from the edge. I couldn't stand on my own. My legs were jelly. I slumped against him, my head falling onto his shoulder.
"Did we..." I wheezed, the air rattling in my chest. "Did we make it?"
Kaelen looked over at the river of ash, where the hands were slowly sinking back into the sludge, denied their prize.
By a margin of error that makes me want to vomit,Elias said softly in my mind.But yes. We made it.
Elias and Flynn crowded in, their lingering terror echoing down the bond. Thane loomed over us, his shadow warm and protective.
"You cracked," Kaelen said, reaching up to touch the jagged line of gold light pulsing on my collarbone. His fingertips came away smeared with a golden fluid. Divine blood. "You're bleeding light, Aria."
"I'll patch it," I mumbled, my eyes sliding shut against my will. The exhaustion was a heavy, velvety tide pulling me under. "Just... give me a minute."
TEN
Aria
"Just give me a minute," I had said.
A minute came and went. Then five. The minute wasn't the problem. My body was. I had asked it for a pause and a recovery, and it had taken the pause and refused the recovery.
I lay on the cold obsidian bank, the sharp edges of the volcanic glass digging into my back through my tunic, but the pain felt distant. It was information arriving via a delayed courier. What felt immediate was the heat radiating from my neck.
It wasn't a fever. It was a leak.
