No choice.
My hand shoots up?—
“Stop!” The figure in white’s command booms across the camp, and the heat vanishes instantly as the dragon’s jaws snap shut with a sickening wet crack.
Magic thrumming at my fingertips, every muscle in my body straining, I turn and throw everything I have at the figure as they advance toward me.
The force of it throws me backwards, my head smashing against the trunk hard enough to make the world swim.
There’s so much magic—more than I’ve ever held. Enough to kill the figure. Hell, enough to kill ten of them. But it isn't focused. It spills out in every direction, spreading too wide, too thin, and shattering against the shield of dirt he’s drawn around himself.
With my body still reeling from the amount of power I somehow just managed to release, I reach again as he moves to strike, but my hands are shaking too hard, my magic too chaotic to answer quickly enough.
His Threads latch onto the air around me, clamping down around my throat, ripping my feet from the ground and pulling me up the tree.
Cold bark scrapes along my bare legs as my fingers scramble against the unseen grip crushing my windpipe.
Gagging against his hold, the figure in white moves in closer, unhurried, while his dragon waits off to one side, ready to turn me to ash at any second.
“Well, well.” Stopping in front of me, he cocks his hooded head. “What is a pretty little thing like you doing out here alone?”
Desperately, I kick my legs against the solid trunk, but his arm jerks, pinning me back harder.
“And with all that magic...” His focus drops to my fingers, where my erratic Threads spark and flicker uselessly. “But Outerlanders don’t have magic. Well, notthatmuch, and an Innerlander wouldn't be all the way out here... especially not alone. So what are you?”
Choking now, I try to spit something back, but nothing makes it past the rising pressure around my neck. My eyes bulge and my vision blurs at the edges.
Taking a step closer, his head moves as though he’s examining me, close enough that the shadows beneath his hood shift, and the scars across his face pull into view, raised and uneven, slicing through his otherwise youthful features.
He can’t be much older than Talen. And his robes are just as pristine, just as white as the ones I’ve seen Serrane wear. The ones worn by his Inner Circle initiates. But as he moves in, my gaze finally catches on his eyes, narrow and curious as they roam over me, shining a bright, pale blue.
Not black.
Lifting his hand, he slowly reaches for my face.
I twist away, turning my cheek from him, my whole body fighting against the hold keeping me pinned, but the second his fingers touch my skin, he jerks his hand back and his eyes flare wide.
“Threadweaver!” he gasps.
Stumbling back a step, his Threads falter and suddenly the pressure around my throat vanishes all at once, and I hit the ground hard, my knees cracking against the earth before my palms catch me.
Coughing, I bring a trembling hand to my bruised throat and force my head up to face him. The shock is still there, written across his scarred features, but it doesn’t last. It twists into something worse. Something sicker.
“Oh,he’sbeen looking for you.” A satisfied smirk spreads across his mouth, and my gut turns.
Still unable to speak, I shove a hand into the dirt, trying to push myself up, trying to gather my magic, but there still isn’t enough air in me. My arm buckles, and I hit the ground again, useless and shaking.
“I should thank you...” His voice rings strangely in my ears, warped beneath the rough drag of my own breathing as I force my lungs open, pulling in one thin inhale, then another.
A few more. That’s all I need. A few more, and I can stand.
“He will be so pleased with me,” he chuckles. “So very pleased. He wil?—”
“Run!” The command blasts through my mind—unfamiliar and yet somehow known—hard enough to make my teeth clamp together and my hands fly to my ears. “Run. NOW!”
I don't question it. Don't even think.
The figure in white stands right in front of me, his dragon off to one side. Running is suicide, but something in the voice sends my legs moving. Pouring every scrap of strength I have into them, I dive to the left just as flames detonate across the ground where I'd been lying.
