Page 18 of Claim the Light
The weight of the ash islike a hammer beating against me, but beneath that weight, there’s also…
Power.
A glittering, seductive power.
It rests on the surface of my skin like a shield and, while it’s sucking the happiness and warmth out of me, it’s also making me feel untouchable. Unfeeling. Unable to be hurt.
If I let it stay… If I let it become a second skin…
No.I shake myself.
That kind of power would turn my heart to shadows and vengeance.
It would crush my soul, and I won’t let it do that.
And I sure as fuck am not about to let this keeper kill me to get at it.
I tried scraping the dust off myself before and so did Beatrix, but we’re in a different place now. An abyss filled with the kind of darkness with which the dust belongs. This wraith seems insistent that I can hand the ash over to him.
So I try again.
With a snarl, I claw at my arms where the ash clings to me, using my fingernails to scrub at my skin.
I don’t expect it to work. Not even for a moment.
My eyes widen with surprise when the crystals lift off me, floating upward into the gloom.
The keeper’s lips rise into a smile. His fist snaps open, releasing my heart, and I gasp with relief. But I don’t stop, not for a second, scrubbing at my body as fast as I can.
Opposite me, his palm opens and I sense the pull in the space between us.
The crystalline dust immediately gravitates to him, directed as if by a magnet.
Then it’s like a cascade.
I don’t second-guess it. As long as the ash is rising from my body, I’ll let it go.
As I scratch at my body and face, leaving red welts across my skin, each subsequent crystal rises more easily than the last until they form a stream of glittering ash floating toward the keeper and settling, not only on his palm, but on his arms and chest. Even on his jaw. Covering every visible inch of his pale, gray skin.
Frantically swiping my hand across the remaining ash on my arms, I push the final crystals off me. The moment the last smear leaves me, the heaviness in my heart eases completely.
I exhale a groan of relief.
My legs buckle, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference to the way I’m standing, given that there’s nothing beneath me.
Finally free of the dust, I turn my mind to Micah and Beatrix.
My goals are simple. Basic impulses geared toward our survival: Remove the dust from them and get the hell out of here.
But first, I turn to the dark magic keeper. “You said we have to give the ash to you. Does it count as ‘giving’ if I scrape it off their bodies for them?”
Glittering light spills out from behind his crown, as if his eyes suddenly lit up. “You have that power,” he says. “You may remove whatever darkness you like from them, and I will accept it as a gift from you, Sophia Dragon.”
His use of my name is startling—and also puzzling that he gives me the surname of my species. What’s more worrying is the implication thatIhave the power totake this darkness from them where another supernatural might not.
I shake off my uncertainty and my questions. I don’t have time to waste. My only goal now is saving my family.
“Allow them to come to me,” I snap at the keeper, gesturing at Micah and Beatrix, taking a guess that he can control their movement. “If you want the magic from them, you must bring them to me so I can give it to you.”
