This time, when I reach, it isn’t my hand that stretches out. It is my heartbeat. My being. I expand until I am the emptiness that surrounds me. Until I am the darkness itself, holding this all together.
Death is wicked to be this cold. This callous.
There is no peace like promised; there is just nothingness as I weave in and out of my mind. In and out of my body. I’m in prison, and I am not. I’m in my skin, and I am not. I am alone, and I am not.
Because he is here. Somewhere in the shadows, I feel him.
And when I finally wrap my fingers around that thread, my palm burns. The dark is replaced with pure white light. So bright my entire being opens just to take it all in. Until I am the only darkness left, so I inhale the light from the sky. Swallow it down.
And I burst.
Chapter 7
Elorie
White light floods my vision,illuminating the dark. It buzzes in my ears until the prison reforms, silencing everything. The cold floor is frigid against my shins. All warmth has been stripped from the air. From my bones.
A cool light shimmers a breath away from my skin, as if my aura has detached.
I’m a moonlight flame in the depths of nothing.
Flecks of starlight snow overhead, but they aren’t solid when they land around me. Pieces of the night drift down a path, leading the way.
I cling to that flicker. To that thread of light. And I tug.
There has been enough death—enough saltwater tears dripping over burned bones and ash.
No more.
Beneath me, the prisoner’s skin heats. His rune markings glow with his golden eyes staring up at me. It wraps through his blood. Lightning in his veins. Sparking, nipping at my palms with a final surge of light.
His back arches, and I stumble away, catchingmyself on the stone. The prison takes a breath and snuffs me out in one exhale, erasing that place I drifted to in my mind.
We’re back. We’re whole. And when I press my palm to my side, it’s no longer aching. There’s no more blood.
“What did she do?” A voice behind me has me jumping to my feet.
A group of three human prison guards watches me from the shadows, but I don’t remember them walking in here.
Where ishereanymore?
The walls are those of the prison, but the cell is long gone. There is no path, only a wide-open room, and I’m standing in a beam of light at the center.
The men lean together and whisper.
“There’s no magic on this island.”
“That wasn’t magic; that was evil.”
“Did you feel it?”
“She raised him.”
Raised him?
My gaze darts to where the prisoner was lying only seconds ago, but he’s no longer there. Likely swallowed by the prison.
Are they right? The last thing I remember is the heavy beat of his heart against his ribs before he died.
