Page 27 of Incoronate
“Woah. What the fuck is that?” asked Trace, his body going rigid behind me.
Dominic’s eyes dropped to my arm, presumably where Trace was looking, and I followed his line of sight.
The black lines had multiplied, spreading up my forearms in a web of dark veins that looked stark and wrong against my skin, branching in jagged patterns that pulsed beneath my skin like something alive.
“What is this?” hissed Dominic as he squeezed my wrist and turned it over.
Caleb stepped closer to get a better look. “Holy shit,” he whispered, his eyes rounding out in horror. “Spell rot.”
The words sent an icy chill down my spine, the fine hairs at the back of my neck lifting in response.
“What the fuck is spell rot?” demanded Trace, his muscles straining around me. “Are the Horsemen doing this to her?”
Caleb shook his head, still gawking at the black veins spidering under my skin. He wasn’t even blinking anymore. “No, man. She’s doing it to herself.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Another growl ripped from Dominic. “Explain. Now.”
“It’s basically like…fuck. How do I explain this? Okay. Imagine your magic as something your body generates and burns through in a cycle. Input, output, balance,” he said speedily, his jaw tight. “Now imagine the input side gets opened up like a geyser. Too much power slamming into her system all at once, too many competing sources. Her body can’t metabolize it fast enough. And having too much of anything is toxic, magic or otherwise.”
Dominic went deathly still. “Are you implying she’s being poisoned by her own magic?”
Caleb looked horrified when he answered, “Basically, yeah. Her body can’t process all of it at the same time, and since it doesn’t have a way to unload any of it, it’s basically just building up in her system until...” He trailed off, his throat working.
I could feel them all fighting for control of me inside my head then—Dominic’s compulsion driving down from one side, the Horsemen’s voices shrieking from the other, and something that still barely felt like me caught in between, losing ground to both of them by the second. The pain of it was unlike anything I had ever felt before, like my skull was being stretched tight enough to split wide open.
As if feeling their hold on me weaken, the Horsemen’s voices surged louder, and I cried out, my legs giving out entirely. Trace’s hold was the only thing keeping me uprightanymore, every muscle in my body going slack as the pain in my head reached a crescendo.
“Help her,” demanded Dominic, his words muffled beneath the cacophony in my head. “Undo it. Now.”
“I can’t,” croaked Caleb, the anguish cutting through everything else. “I don’t have that kind of power. Not even the Order has that kind of power. This isn’t a curse someone put on her. It’s her own magic turning against her body. I’m not…I can’t—”
“Then find me someone whocan,” snarled Dominic, his words cutting through the room like carving knives.
“You don’t understand. This isn’t…” Caleb shook his head and turned back to me. To the black lines crawling up my arms and spreading. To the way I was shaking in Trace’s hold, barely able to stand on my own. “I don’t know ifanyonehas the power to stop this,” he said.
And it was the very last thing I remembered hearing before the voices took over completely.
9. FEVER PITCH
The last remnants of the Horsemen’s calls reverberated through my head before disappearing into the dark recess of my mind, leaving behind an uneasy silence and the cold certainty of their return.
My eyes opened to the feel of metal around my wrists and a searing heat under my skin that had nothing to do with desire. It wasn’t the pleasant kind that came from bodies pressed too close or skin warmed by a lover’s touch. This was different. It was the kind of heat that came from a bone-deep fever, radiating outward in pulsing waves, like my body had been left too close to a flame and forgotten there.
I blinked up at my bedroom ceiling, the room slowly swimming into focus. The windows were dark now, lit only by a sliver of moonlight that pressed through the rain-streaked glass, making shadows dance against the walls. The hard rains from earlier had finally calmed, easing instead into a light prickle against the glass as though it had nowhere better to be tonight.
I wondered how long I had been asleep this time. Apparently, long enough for daylight to bleed into nightfall.
My wrists were cuffed above my head again, secured to the headboard with the same chains from last night. Only this time there was no anticipation humming under my skin. No heat that made the restraints feel like they were part of a game I desperately wanted to play.
Just cold, punishing metal and the knowledge that I couldn’t be trusted.
Trace was sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room, his forearms braced against his knees, his handsclasped tightly together as Dominic stood by my balcony door, staring out at the night with his hands in his pockets and his back to the room.
Neither of them looked relaxed. And neither had noticed I was awake yet.
I tried to speak, but my throat was too dry. The sound that came out was more rasp than actual words.
