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“A spirit?” I scowled. “Why would you be a spirit?”
Running her hands over her wet chest, rubbing away the circles around each breast and the long line from her belly to her bottom lip, she hugged herself. “I don’t understand how I’m here,” she repeated to herself, looking back at the camp. “Can Solin see that I’ve gone or is my body still beside his in his lupic?”
Her eyes flew to the storm-broiling sky. “It’s almost dawn. The fire must have released us. The mushroom and symbols worked at bringing me out of the fire, but I’m not home. What if the damaq root is still in my system and my spirit cannot return to a body that’s still toxic?” She gasped. “What if this is another illusion? A trance within a trance.” Her eyes flew to mine. “That has to be true. How else are you here? Alive and in good health when you ought to be dead from fevers?” She shuddered and hugged herself. “You’re the spirit, not me.”
I didn’t speak, fearing her mental stability.
She moaned low and tortured. “But if you’re not truly here...that means you didn’t survive the fevers...or maybe you did, and I didn’t survive the trance? Or maybe we’re both dead and—”
“I’m alive.” I touched my chest, running my hands down my body. “See?” Reaching across the distance between us, I squeezed her shoulder firmly. The sting that always accompanied touching her kissed me sharply. “You’re alive. Same as me.”
She flinched; her eyes wild.
It hurt to see her so confused, so lost. “We’re both here,” I murmured. “This is real. There is no trance, no death. Just us standing in a thunderstorm.”
What if the hunter who’d mounted her had scarred, not just her body, but her mind too? What if her spirit was broken and this was her way of dealing with what’d happened?
My heart pained.
I wanted to kill him.
To turn wolf and claw out his rotten, disgusting heart.
Dropping my hand from her shoulder, I whispered, “I don’t know what happened to you since Salak took me away, but I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help.” Moving slowly, so as not to layer her panic with more, I stepped into her. “Whatever you’ve endured, it’s over now.” With careful tenderness, I cupped her cheek. “I’m with you.”
She shivered as a current of heat pulsed between us. Her arms loosened from their protective embrace as my fingertips tingled from our unexplainable connection. The crescent-moon mark on my upper thigh stung.
Her amber eyes met mine, still slightly dazed, still cloudy with confusion. “The fire said you already walked with death.”
Anger churned in my stomach. “Fire is nothing but an element. How can an element say such things?”
“The fire allowed me to walk through it. It granted me the ability to call myself Quelis.” Her forehead furrowed. “It gave me back my name.” Her eyes rounded. “My name...I-I remember who I am.”
I grazed my thumb over her delicate cheekbone, keeping my voice soothing. “I’m glad if that’s what you wanted, but you don’t need a name for me to know you.”
She sucked in a breath, backing away. “This doesn’t make any sense. Solin tied the entrance together. He made sure no one could get in or out until the trance was over.”
I followed her footfall for footfall, chasing her slowly as her thoughts unravelled once again. “The damaq toxin he fed us made us pass out. I know it did. I doubt I would be able to walk this far so fast...especially unaware.”
Another thick shadow appeared from around my legs. “He fed you poison?” I bared my teeth. “You could’ve died.”
“We did die...for a time. Or at least...” She rubbed her forehead as if a headache bloomed. “I think we did. The fire claimed us. We became a part of it.” She moved faster, trying to get away from me. “I need to get back. If this is another illusion and my spirit isn’t back in my body before dawn, I don’t know what will happen. I might be lost forever.”
She choked as true panic smothered her. “What if I’m lost again? Forever walking the world like before? Alone...hungry...I-I can’t do that again. I can’t forget the meagre things I’ve remembered. I can’t go back to that emptiness, that loneliness.”
Spinning around, she broke into a run.
Rain continued to fall in sheets, turning the dry dirt into slippery mud.
My toes squished into it as I launched myself after her.
Her panic fed mine, slipping into the cold hollowness inside me. I tasted her terror of being alone again. I had that same terror. That same bone-deep despair.
“Wait—” I lurched forward and grabbed her elbow.
She spun around, hitting my wrist where I held her. “I have to go. I can’t be lost again. I can’t—”
“You’re not lost.” I wrapped her tight in my arms, shuddering as the heat fed between us, scalding my blood and granting a sense of peace in the storm. “I’m here.”
