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Another crack of forked lightning illuminated the world, followed by an angry rumble.
I froze solid.
Where there had been nothing but grass before, now stood a silhouette. A silhouette with long white hair plastered to rain-slick shoulders. A silhouette that became more and more substantial as the rain washed away strange swirls and symbols on her face, arms, and chest.
My heart tripped as her features came fully into focus.
“You!” I charged forward, clamping my hands on her shoulders, smearing the slightly gritty, oily markings on her flesh. “You’re here. How...how is that possible?”
Her eyes remained glazed and vacant.
I shook her. “I came back as fast as I could. I came to find you. To stop them. Did they hurt you? Are you alright?” Squeezing my fingers into her cool skin, I held her at arm’s length, studying her nakedness, scowling at the markings on her body as they continued to wash away thanks to the torrential rain.
The noise of raindrops slamming against the earth and the teeth-pounding boom of more thunder turned the calm, stagnant night into one of absolute chaos.
My heart fisted as the girl swayed in my hold, her eyelashes fluttering.
I resisted the urge to shake her harder. “Where did you come from?” Curling my upper lip, I smeared a finger through a rain-destroyed symbol on her collarbone. “Who did this to you?”
Was this some strange Nhil custom? To paint each other in the remnants of fire and trip into the grasslands, dazed and unaware?
Anger bubbled in my stomach.
What did they do to her while I was gone?
Shadows reacted to my frustration and fears, licking around my ankles, unfussed about rain arrowing through them.
“It’s me,” I murmured, stroking her jaw with my knuckles. “You’re safe. With me.”
She blinked slowly as if my touch managed to reach inside whatever fugue she stood in. Animation returned to her body, and her chest rose with a sharp inhale. She swayed sideways, frowning at the landscape. A low moan slipped through her lips, and she tripped away from me, breaking my hold on her. “H-How...” She wiped her eyes with swirl-painted hands, clearing her vision from the rain and wiping away the ash mask that’d coated her. “How did I get here?”
I looked past her to the horizon where the faintest glow of a new day did its best to light up the blackened clouds above. The silver plume of the Nhil’s constant fire couldn’t fight against the rivers falling from the sky, and its smoke had dampened to nothing.
No other clan members chased after her. No spears flew in the darkness to impale me. No men’s shouts or curses hunted us.
We were alone.
In a sea of grass as the sky turned into an upside-down lake, drowning us with every breath. My skin prickled with cold as I looked back at the girl. “I was coming for you. I don’t know how long it’s been since what happened by the river, but—”
“A full night and day,” she whispered, barely audible above the rain. “I don’t understand how you’re here. How we’re standing here together. The wolves took you. I-I feared you were dead.”
“Dead?” My shoulders swooped back. “Why would you think that?”
Her head tilted, her long moonlight hair sticking to her shoulders with strings of white. “Aktor threw a spear into you. Kivva hit you around the head with his staff. Not to mention Syn’s bite...” Her gaze dropped to my side where the spear had wounded me, then flew to my arm.
“Wait...” Stepping into me, she snatched my wrist, studying the mostly healed bite, running her fingers over the almost-scar, wincing at the thickened, tattered edges. “I-I don’t understand.”
I didn’t either, but I didn’t know how to tell her. I had no answers. “As you can see, I am not dead.”
Her amber eyes met mine, almost dark bronze in the rain-thick dawn. “How is that possible?” She peered into my stare. “You don’t seem to suffer from fevers anymore. And your body has...healed.”
“The wolves took me home.” I shrugged, hoping she’d accept that as everything she needed to know.
“They did this?” She shook her head. “How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” She dropped my wrist and ran her hand down the remaining symbols clinging to her skin. With every swipe and every rinse that the rain provided, she seemed more clear, more solid—almost as if she shrugged off a shroud that’d hidden her in plain sight.
“Those designs.” I reached out and ran my finger through the remaining grit. “What are they?”
She winced. “They’re part of...or were part of a trance ritual.” Glancing over her shoulder toward the Nhil camp on the horizon, she gasped. “I don’t understand how I’m here when only moments ago I was...” She frowned. “This cannot be.” Meeting my eyes with a slight-panicked haze, she asked, “You see me. You touched me. Am I really truly here or...or am I...am I a spirit?”
