Page 113 of The Blade in the Ashes
When I buckled a second time and finally to my knees, Elaina fell with me, her fingertips running soothing paths over my head.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice was desperate. “Open your eyes, please!”
I did as she told me. I blinked through the pain, opened my eyes, and saw another world.
The air smelt of mud and pine. Wildly, I spun in a circle, taking in the dusty leaves and cracked ground beneath my feet. Thick branches and dying leaves blocked out any view of the sun, leaving everything around me dim and unsettling.
“Elaina?” I called. My voice seemed to echo endlessly around me.
Woods. I was in the woods.
I spun once more, this time in the opposite direction, desperate to understand my new surroundings. How in all of creation was I in the woods?
“I need a weapon!”
My heart lurched as I jolted from the sudden voice behind me, seconds before my blood ran cold with recognition.
I knew that voice.
A broken gasp escaped my lips as I stumbled towards it, only for a scream to shatter the air only minutes later. The cry surrounded me, echoing unnaturally in my mind as I broke into a sprint, moving towards the sound with desperate intensity.
I wasn’t entirely sure where I was or how I had gotten here, but I knew I needed to move. I needed to find her.
That was the single most important thing I could do with my otherwise useless life.
Twigs snapped under my feet as branches smacked across my face, but I kept running, not even feeling the splitting skin across my cheek.
“Thea!” Another voice, one I didn’t recognize.
I shoved myself over a fallen tree, running at full speed. After no more than a few paces, the pinch of a cramp started in my left side and I ignored it, shoving my hand against the ache just as I spotted characteristically golden hair.
“Thea,” her name escaped in a whisper.
I almost couldn’t believe it. After all this time, she was standing right before me. Just feet away. She stood with her shoulders squared in a simple gown, while her lady-in-waiting trembled behind her. Thea’s skin was pale and gaunt, exhaustion painfully obvious across her features and bones obviously protruding across her collarbone. A splint awkwardly encircled herwrist, and she kept the arm close even as she reached behind her, palm open and demanding.
“I don’t have anything!” cried her lady.
I stared at them, trying to understand the panic clear in both of their eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Thea looked around with narrowed focus, her eyes coasting over me as she did. Her eyes passed over me without the slightest hint of recognition, as if I weren’t there at all. Or as if she couldn’t see me.
Holding my arms in front of me, I glanced down at myself, swallowing audibly.
I couldn't see my hands.
I could feel the extension of my arms as if they were right there in front of me, though. Rubbing my forefinger against my thumb, I marveled at the way I could sense the touch without actually seeing the appendages themselves.
I wasn't really here. Whatever magic had brought me this vision didn't allow me to actually interact with Thea.
She and her lady were alone, with nothing but a white cat at their ankles who stared at them with twitching whiskers. Thea’s lady jumped as a snarl ripped towards them, and it was only then that I could look past the two women and notice those awful Underworld monsters crawling towards them. Four of them, with peeling skin and rotting teeth, lurched for the girls with vicious, inhuman roars.
Thea spun, lifting her leg to kick out at the one that rushed at her while grabbing for the other that moved towards her lady. With her uninjured hand, she slammed her palm upwards, pushing the monster’s nose into its decaying flesh before she fell backwards and rammed her elbow into another.
“How do we kill them?” her lady screamed, as her arms lit up in flames. She waved her arms awkwardly at the monsters, clearly untrained and clueless on how to actually defend herself.
The Dragon had insisted that the members of the Council learn to defend themselves, but he clearly hadn’t been concerned with members of the palace staff—an oversight that could very well mean this poor woman’s death.
“I’ve only ever seen them killed with a blade to the head,” Thea breathed as she continued fighting.
