Page 17 of Claim the Light
His lips twist in a cruel line as he speaks, low and soft. “That magic belongs to me.”
I don’t know what he’s talking about until I follow his pointed finger. He seems to be gesturing to the dust coating my arm.
The ash belongs to him?
“Who are you?” I demand to know.
“I am the keeper of dark magic,” he says, his cloak swishing around him as he takes a step toward me. The material makes a hissing sound that breaks the oppressive silence. “It is my burden to ensure that dark magic is claimed when creatures of dark magic die.”
My eyes widen. “I’m not a creature of dark magic.”
Dragon shifters, like angels, are born of light magic. When the dragon’s light was taken from us, we suffered, but not anymore.
My voice hardens as I quickly continue. “And I’m not dead.”
Not fucking yet.
His snarl is instant. “Yet you are here because you carry magic that does not belong to you. The moment you touched the water, it called to me. Now, you must give it to me.”
A chill passes through me as his upraised hand closes into a fist, as if his fingers were gripping my heart.
Icy tendrils like the invisible ones that dragged me down into this oblivion curl around my chest, squeezing so tightly that it feels like I’m being crushed.
I’m frozen with shock, but my hesitation only seems to enrage him.
“Dark magic cannot remain untethered!” he roars, his fist squeezing more tightly in the air, causing the pressure on my heart to increase.
His eyes may be hidden, but the slight turn of his head indicates that his focus now switches to Micah and Beatrix.
“This dark magic you carry seeks only destruction,” he says. “It is my burden to tether it.”
He steps forward, a dark, raging form. “Give it to me, dragon, or I will have no choice but to tear out your heart and take the ash from your dead body.”
I stare up at him with wide eyes, struggling to respond, struggling to unclench the muscles of my throat to allow speech through.
With an enormous effort, I whisper back at him. “Then take it! I don’t want it.Wedon’t want it.”
The keeper leans backward, his head tilted as if I’ve surprised him. “You would give up this power without a fight?”
Did he expect me to fight him?
“I’m notgiving upanything,” I rasp. “This ash is killing us.”
He pauses, his head still tilted. “If that is what you believe.” He sounds skeptical, as if he doesn’t believe me.
His response only confuses me. We’re dying because of this ash. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no doubt about it.
He continues before I can voice my confusion. “But as long as you’re alive, you must give this power to me.”
“I already told you I don’t want it!” For fuck’s sake, we fell into this water for the very purpose of getting rid of this dust.
“Then give it to me!” he commands me. “I cannottakeit unless you’re dead.”
A scream of frustration leaves my lips. We’re going round in circles. He’s telling me to give it to him, but I don’t know how to do that. I literally can’t take it off my body and hand it over to him. If I could have willed the ash the fuck off me, or scraped it off myself, I would have done it already.
My frustration gives way to despair but I push hard against that emotion because it can only defeat me.
As the keeper continues to tighten his fist and the pressure of my own heartbeat drums in my ears, I force myself to turn my thoughts inward. To pretend that the ash doesn’t scare the fuck out of me and to consider its nature in the same way I’d consider the sun. Or a tree. Or a ball. Or some other everyday thing.
