Page 164 of A Touch of Poison
Bastian.
62
Kat
Itook too long to find Bastian in the melee. When I finally did, I understood why. He wasn’t at his normal height but down on one knee, blood spilling from his thigh. Too much blood.
Pulse pounding not just at my temples and throat, but in my face, I felt as though it was taking over my entire body.
Still, he blocked one blow and another.
Unable to look away, I stumbled from behind the boulder and groped on the ground for one of the enemy’s arrows. Every strike upon his sword shook my bones.
My fingers closed on an arrow shaft and I nocked it, drew, aimed.
I didn’t get to exhale, calm and ready to fire.
A sword erupted from Bastian’s stomach as he parried the warrior before him.
Crimson. Glinting metal. His face dropping.
I let out a cry, went to shoot, realised the arrow I’d picked up was broken.
But not as broken as Bastian.
The blade wrenched from his stomach.
The shadows of his sword vanished, leaving only steel. The glow in his eyes went out.
He fell.
“No.No.” The bow fell from my trembling fingers as panic buzzed against my face harder and harder with each frantic heartbeat.
Not this.Not this.
Not Bastian.
A terrible heat engulfed me, like pressure that needed release, and when I yanked off my gloves, my hands were black. Not purple—black. And something dark spilled from them.
That trembling… it wasn’t fear but rage.
That buzz… it wasn’t panic but power.
You hold on too tight.
Then I would let go.
Skin prickling, poison hazing from me thicker than it had in Kaliban’s house, I straightened my back and reached out.
I gathered the magic vibrating against my skin, and purple mist rolled off me. There was only me and the power that consumed my entire focus.
Once I’d used up the nearby magic, I reached out with my mind. I grabbed the rocks and their low resonance, the land’s heady hum, the pine trees’ higher, more complex vibrations.
Sometimes the power tried to slither away, but I gritted my teeth and yanked it to me.
You are mine.
My poison formed a low mist over the ground, thickening with every second.
