Page 88 of The Blade in the Ashes
And then pain.
Terror and anguish swam inside me with such strength that I nearly doubled over. And yet, it wasn’t my own. I was a witness to it—a victim of someone else’s agony.
It was my body and also hers.
She was I and I was… I didn’t know.
The flashes of visions came faster and faster, swarming so rapidly that I struggled to disentangle everything I was seeing.
Hyrax.
And Caldrius.
Anger on one face, satisfactionon another.
Iwoke to the sensation of hands on my shoulders, shaking me so forcefully that my head rocked against the pillow.
“Camilla!”
I jerked, scrambling backwards on the bed, half-delirious. “What happened?”
Elaina sat before me, still in the simple gown she had worn yesterday. Her long hair was loose around her shoulders; her face pinched in concern. “You were having a nightmare.”
My chest rose and fell heavily, my heart unable to slow as I became acquainted with my surroundings. Moonlight from the clear sky crept into my room through the tiny window across the space, but I still felt rain coating my skin.
Dropping the sheets from my fingertips, I held up my hand in front of me, turning it over and back, searching for some kind of physical evidence of what had just happened.
“What’s wrong?” Elaina asked, frowning at me.
“It’s broken.” My voice cracked, and I took another heaving breath. “It broke.”
Shifting forward, Elaina took my hand in both of hers, running her fingers over it and massaging out the tension. “No, sweetie, it’s not. It was just a nightmare.”
She kept her tone soothing, not noticing how that only sent me further on edge.
She was wrong. I had felt the bone snap and send spikes of aching up my arm and shoulder.
IknowI had felt it.
Or at least…
Maybe I hadn’t felt it so much as I had watched it. No, that wasn’t the right way to explain it either. I had lived it.
I had lived the experience of another.
A sob broke out of me, and I rubbed at my temples. That didn’t make any sense. None of that dream had made any sense.
“Shhh,” Elaina crawled further into the bed, settling herself beside me and pulling me into her arms so that she could run a hand soothingly over my head. “It’s alright, Camilla. It was just a bad dream.”
I took comfort in her warmth, breathing in her familiar scent and savoring her gentle touch.
She’d been here when I’d fallen asleep too.
She had stayed here with me. She knew if she left I would stay awake all night making poultices and tonics, so she had stayed right here by my side, telling me stories of her kingdom until I fell asleep.
Had she accidentally fallen asleep next to me? Shared the same bed?
The thought sent a small burst of warmth bursting through me.
