Page 84 of Claim the Light
Lana considers me quietly. “Tell me what youdoknow.”
Taking a deep breath, I try to steady myself. “I can sense death. I can feel the chill when a person—or an animal—is dying. I can also sense life. New life, that is. I helped a mother deer give birth, and now with you—”
“Back up,” she says, her eyes a little brighter. “A mother deer?”
“They live in a forest behind one of the doors.” My forehead creases. “I don’t actually know what they’re called. They look a bit like horses, but they have antlers.”
“Mahogany antlers, the same color as the tree trunks,” Lana says, as if she knows the animals I’m talking about. “And fur as green as leaves after a fresh rain.”
“That’s them.”
Now her lips press together and she looks a little worried. “I hope you avoided their antlers. They can burn the skin right off your palms. Even through your scales.”
I nod but shrug off the danger because it’s in the past and the least of my worries. “The stag attacked Micah. He ended up with some burns, but I was able to push the stag away, and Micah healed.”
Lana’s eyes quickly narrow. “You pushed its body away?”
“No, I held it by the antlers, but really, it was fine. It didn’t burn me. I was more confused about why the stag attacked Micah in the first place.”
She’s staring at me, but with the gentlest smile. “Oh, Sophia, your power is an incredible thing.”
I’m even more confused by her reaction than I was about the stag’s attack. “I don’t understand.”
“Nobody touches the antlers of those beasts without burning themselves. Not me. Not even Isaac with all his purity.” She squeezes my hand. “As for why it would have attacked Micah, well, I imagine the stag thought Micah was a threat to you.”
“Why would it believe that? Micah was just standing there.”
Her expression becomes grim, but her piercing blue eyes refuse to release me. “The shadows are growing in Micah, too, aren’t they? Just like they’re growing in Beatrix. And now in me.”
“How did you know about Micah and Beatrix?” I ask, since she only saw them briefly just now and even Isaac hadn’t sensed anything was wrong until Beatrix collapsed.
Lana’s speech slows, but she seems more careful than tired now. “When they were in this room with me just now, there were moments of nothingness where their presence should have been. Moments when it was as if they weren’t here at all.”
With every word Lana speaks, my heart is falling. My world is crumbling. And now it’s my turn to arrest her gaze and not let her go. “Lana, what is it that you know? Whataren’tyou telling me?”
She squeezes her eyes closed. “I’ve spent every waking moment since we separated tracking and surveilling the Scorn. As you know, I can’t sense whether or not someone is a dragon shifter, but I can sense guilt.
“When I interacted with the Scorn on previous occasions, I sensed murder, theft, and violence. But now? The Scorn dragons who are wearing Tyler’s mark radiate nothing. They have no guilt. No emotions. It’s like observing a stone. They have nolife.”
“Tyler’s mark?” I ask.
“A line of ash across their faces.” Lana’s lips press into a grim line. “I didn’t understand it until I felt the ash on my own skin.”
She lifts her free hand from beneath the blankets and presses her fingertips to her face. “Right here. The tip of his wing scraped me and that’s all it took. Now, I feel my heart slipping away. I feel… a nothingness taking over.”
I’m shaking my head. I refuse to believe it, but denial is a cruel emotion.
She continues. Relentlessly. “I sense it in Micah and Beatrix. They’re losing themselves. And soon, like me, they will become Tyler’s puppets.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
“No.” I remove my hand from Lana’s. “I won’t accept that.”
“You must!” she says, shocking me with her sudden ferocity. Gone is my friend and in her place is the angel I once feared. Cold and deadly. “You must face it so you can fight it!”
My teeth are gritted. “Facing it is one thing. But fighting it? I’m not like you or Callan. I’ve never been a leader. I’ve never been the dragon anyone turned to—”
She snatches my hand back into hers, a hard grip. “When I brought the dragon’s light back into the world, every dragon was given the ability to evolve. I thought that would be a good thing.”
