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The trance had been a stupid, stupid idea.
I wasn’t skilled enough, powerful enough.
Who was I to believe I could request such a thing from an element that’d only delivered warnings instead of welcome?
It’s my fault.
All my fault.
His skin was greyish and as cool as the river. His lips parted and eyes closed. When he’d screamed in the fire’s vision and torn his hand from mine, our link had snapped.
We’d lost each other just like I’d lost Solin.
I’d tumbled through the flames.
I’d spun and tripped and woken explosively on the riverbank.
But the stranger? He’d collapsed onto his back and never stirred.
“Please...” I murmured, repeating the same plea I’d spoken all day until my throat was hoarse. “Please let him go. Wherever you’ve taken him, please let him wake.”
The fire didn’t answer. The river didn’t sing. The wolves whined and pressed their muzzles harder against their outstretched paws.
Natim crushed closer against my thigh.
“It’s my fault,” I whispered. “Take your wrath out on me, not him. I’m the one you chose to receive your gifts. Take them away if you must. If he isn’t Quelis born, then I cannot be either. We are the same...so please, let him wake.”
But just like all my other pleadings, the fire didn’t reply.
Dusk slowly snuck over the world, stealing sunlight.
As the day faded, the night chill settled, turning the stranger’s terrifyingly still form ever colder.
Is he...
Was he...
I buried my face into my knees.
I couldn’t even think the word.
If he was...dead...I didn’t know what I’d do. I’d only known him such a short while, yet he’d become so important, so real.
The sun began its descent into the earth, painting the thin drifting clouds with vibrant colours. Searing pinks and bruising purples, all slowly bleeding into cloaking navy blues.
As the sun finally snuffed out, saying farewell to this awful, awful day, I looked over my shoulder toward the cave on the other side of the woods.
I should go get Salak. The alpha would know what to do. He’d cared for the stranger when he was hurt. He’d cured him of fevers and wounds that should’ve killed him.
If Salak could do that.
He could fix this.
He has to.
Shifting from my rear to my knees, I swiped at my salt-sticky face. Natim bleated at my standing. The two wolves that’d guarded us all afternoon raised their giant horned heads, narrowing their eyes on mine.
I sucked in a stuttered breath. “I need...I have to go get your alpha.”
One of the wolves, the smallest of the two, cocked its head. The other lumbered to its feet and yawned, revealing a row of perfect, piercing teeth. Shaking its bulk, it padded closer to the stranger and nuzzled his breathless chest.
I wanted to push the predator away as prickles of unease filled me.
If the stranger died, would they...
Will they eat him?
I choked on sudden sickness. “Don’t touch him,” I commanded, my voice harsh in the stillness.
The wolf licked the stranger’s shoulder before huffing and moving to the river for a drink. It lapped at the water, reminding me I hadn’t eaten or drunk since this morning. Since I’d stupidly agreed to summon a fire that I had no business summoning and dragged the stranger into a vision that wasn’t safe.
The other wolf followed, dropping to its belly, and lapping at the swift crisp current.
Ignoring my own thirst, I looked back at the unconscious man beside me.
I froze.
As darkness descended all around us, darkness seeped out of his skin. His shadows appeared, misting and whispering, silent and stealthy.
I stopped breathing as the shades swirled and eddied, blurring the stranger until I struggled to see him.
His left hand twitched.
I gasped.
The shadows reformed, no longer soft clouds of blackness but thickening into dense ribbons. They floated over him, coiling and tightening into shapes.
Panic drove me to my knees.
Natim ran away from the shades, vanishing into the trees.
I crawled closer, daring to touch his cool shoulder. “Wake up.”
He didn’t.
But the shadows flickered in response to my touch, finishing their black designs, painting him from head to toe. The wolves kept their distance as I traced a mark on his lower belly, following the wings of a shadow-drawn moth.
I followed the stencil of another.
And another.
The wings of more appearing all over his chest.
More and more moths appeared until his entire form was covered in hundreds of tiny, shade-given creatures. Every inch of his skin, every scar, every mark was covered with pulsing shadows in the shape of moon-loving insects.
I reared backward as more shadows poured out of knotty hair, curling around his cheeks before scribing another moth right over his mouth as if barring him from speaking—a gag made of night butterflies.
My heart pounded as the shades flexed and fluttered, imitating moths in flight, making it seem as if the stranger’s shadow-tattooed flesh came alive.
I wanted to swipe them away.
To tell them to stop.
