Page 147 of The Blade in the Ashes
She was stiff in my arms, returning my hug for only a moment before she pulled back with a tight smile. “It's lovely to see you.”
Her eyes darted to Clay, who frowned when he took in the tension in her shoulders and worry in her eyes.
“I'm so sorry to bother you both. I had no choice.”
Clay stood, any concern about modesty forgotten. “What's wrong?”
Her brows pinched together. “It's Camilla. There's something wrong with her, I think, and I don't know how to help her. Please, Clay, I need you to help her for me.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Camilla
Ihad officially gone mad.
After all this time, I thought I had escaped the clutches of insanity, but I’d been wrong. So terribly wrong.
Visions were hitting me so rapidly I could hardly hold myself steady as I crouched in the corner of my room with my head in my hands and my feet pressing firmly against the floorboards, as if I could ground myself in this space by shoving against the hardwood.
It wasn’t fucking working.
One minute I saw the room in front of me.
The next I saw Rankor talking with a dark-haired woman who glared at him with a look of utter impatience.
Then I was staring at that tiny single-person bed Elaina and I had been sharing every night.
Then, I saw Iris clutching the reins of a horse, wind tearing through her hair while Nikolai sat behind her, his weight an unnatural heaviness against her back.
The transitions from one world to the next were like violently being ripped from my body and then thrown back into it, all while the sights and sounds were still fading from the last place my soul had hovered. I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t control it. I couldn't tell what was real and what wasn’t. There was no way of knowing where I was or evenwhoI was.
I couldn’t bring myself to speak when there was a quick knock at the door before Elaina pushed open the door. She rushed to me instantly, dropping to her knees and brushing away the tears that streaked down my face in her absence. Anxiously, she glanced over her shoulder to Clay and—
“Thea?” My voice cracked as I breathed her name.
Her presence was a momentary balm that soothed away the noise in my mind. She was so thin that the borrowed clothes she wore seemed to hang off her. Her blonde hair was so long now that it touched the tops of her hips. She looked like herself, and yet so much older and more haunted than when I had last seen her. Her blue eyes seemed dimmed when they locked on me.
I looked to Clay instantly, shivering against his concerned frown. “You found her?”
Clay nodded, taking a step into the room and guiding Thea in after him so he could shut the door behind him.
“I was right?” I laughed deliriously, shoving hair out of my eyes. Impossible. Wonderful, of course, that he had saved her. And yet, utterly impossible. “What I saw was right?”
I had expected Clay to respond, but it was Thea who stepped further into the room and looked between us in confusion before asking, “What do you mean by that?”
“I saw you,” I told her, craning my head to look up at her. I was painfully aware that the cadence of my voice sounded as crazed as I felt. “In those woods. With those monsters. I saw you and your friend.”
Her body jerked, stiffening as her eyes went distant for a moment before she shook her head and turned to Elaina. “What’s wrong with her?”
Once again Elaina smoothed down my hair, as if a gentle touch could chase away the madness lingering in the corners of my mind. She watched me with a furrowed brow, wrinkles forming around her eyes before she turned back to Thea and Clay.
“I’m not sure. She’s complaining of seeing things. I thought they might be prophecies at first, but...”
Her voice trailed off nervously, and Clay instinctively angled himself in front of Thea. I didn’t even have it in me to be offended by the movement. Heshouldprotect her from me.
You never knew what someone as mad as I was capable of.
“But?” he prompted.
