Page 86 of The Blade in the Ashes
“Where is it then?” Hyrax snapped, his voice icy and hard.
Caldrius kept his focus on Hyrax even as his hand snaked out and grasped onto mine. He pulled me so that he stood between the shadows and I, his thumb tracing reassuringly over my knuckles.
“There’s evidence that the rebels were here; it’s possible they’ve taken it with them.”
I didn’t move, didn’t dare to breathe too deeply. And when Hyrax turned his steely gaze onto me, any lingering humor long since dead, I stopped breathing.
“Where would they have taken it?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. A lie.
Hyrax scoffed, baring his teeth at me as an overwhelming tightness fell over my muscles. My throat closed with it. I had seen signs of Hyrax’s anger before. I’d watched him kill the Dragon. I’d sat next to him as he tortured Damon.
But he’d never looked atmelike that.
Buzzing energy filled my stomach. Fear. I was afraid.
He stared at me, taking a quick step forward as shadows curled around his legs and wrists. Caldrius was silent as Hyrax marched towards us, but he released my hand, placing it instead across me to guide me slightly behind his form.
He placed himself between us.
“He was your lover, Theadora!” Hyrax roared, the sound echoing through the valley. “I’ve had enough of your feigned ignorance. Tell me where he is. Tell me this instant.”
The sky split open then, deciding it wanted to storm after all. Sheets of icy rain pelted down on us, and in a matter of minutes dripped from my hair and eyelashes.
Part of me felt grateful for it. Because as those shadows pulled closer to me, I began to cry.
And I hated the idea of letting Hyrax see me cry.
His eyes were wide, shining impossibly blue. Shadows shifted along his shoulders and forearms. They moved through his legs sliding to circle Caldrius and me, inching closer and closer and without thinking I grasped Caldrius’ arm. I clung to it with trembling as I stared at those serpentine-like tendrils of darkness.
“Stop it,” I meant it as an order, but it came out as nothing more than a hushed whisper.
“Theadora! You will tell me.”
Too close. They were getting too close.
“Please, stop.” They were going to attack me again. They were going to slice into me. “Please.”
Hyrax threw his hand in my direction and a whip of darkness snapped out, wrapping around my wrist and pulling me stumbling out of Caldrius’ grasp. The shadow ripped me towards Hyrax, and he opened his jaw to spew some other vile demand, but the words fell on deaf ears.
The second that darkness finally touched me, a chasm opened inside my soul.
A chasm of pain and terror that I hadn’t yet allowed to open.
I screamed.
And it wasn’t just one scream.
No, it was so many different screams layered atop one another.
One for Camilla’s shadow attacks.
One for the riding crop against my back at the Dragon’s hands.
One for the slap the Alchemist had delivered across my cheek.
One for the agony of Pasnia tearing my magic out of me.
