A light in the flame

The stone table shattered into ashes.

Faint, flickering light and shadows danced against the now-bare wall. I looked down at my hands—at the widespread fingers lit from within. Silvery light pressed against the sleeves of my blouse as I shook, as dust drifted down, falling onto my wet cheeks. My blood and my lungs continued to burn. I kept shaking—no, it wasn’t me shaking. It was the walls and the high, sweeping ceiling.

Heart tripping, I turned to the pool. The water tossed and tumbled violently but made no sound. Dust fell in thicker sheets like snow. Panic blossomed as the cloak appeared to vibrate along the floor. Pain lit up my chest. Real pain. I wasn’t breathing. I was holding my breath.

I forced my mouth open to inhale, but my throat felt bumpy and scaled now. Only thin wisps of air got through as I desperately went through Holland’s technique, struggling to control myself.

A fissure cracked along the wall, startling me. Another formed in the floor, sounding like thunder.

Oh, gods. I was doing this.

I needed to breathe, but I needed to calm first. I frantically searched for the veil in my mind as I sank to my hands and knees. In the distant part of my brain, I knew I was breathing too fast. That was the problem, but I couldn’t find the emptiness, the blank canvas I hated so much. I couldn’t find myself in the calm because I wasn’t sure I would even recognize myself if I did. That I would even know who or what I was.

A series of shivers ran up my neck and along the back of my skull. My fingers curled against the shadowstone floor as thin cracks spread out beneath me like a fine spiderweb. The embers in my chest vibrated as the fractures in the floor deepened. The corners of my eyes turned white. Stars began bursting all across my vision.

Something…something was inside the cracks in the floor, growing and spreading—

Roots snaked out of the split stone and soil, unfurling over my hands like vines, wrapping my wrists, arms. My stomach seized. What…what was happening?

I could see the ashy roots, but I couldn’t feel their weight against my skin. I couldn’t feel my legs or my face. Oh, gods, was this it? Was I dying now, and the ground was rising up to claim my corpse? It felt like that—felt like the realm was disappearing beneath me, and I could no longer feel myself. I was detached. Floating. Falling away—

Arms swept around mine, hauling my back against a chest, breaking the roots on my arms. They shattered into ash upon hitting the ground. Sera. I heard my name. I heard it spoken over and over until it broke through.

“Sera,” Nyktos shouted, hauling us backward as roots reached out from new cracks beneath me, falling over my legs—over Nyktos’s. He cursed, letting go of me long enough to grab one of the roots, snapping it off. “You need to slow your breathing. Listen to me,” he said, his voice softening. “Put your tongue behind your upper front teeth.”

The order caught me so off guard that I did as he ordered.

“Keep your tongue there and your mouth closed.” He leaned back, keeping me close as he straightened my posture even as the roots crawled up our bodies, crossing my chest. I jerked, whimpering as the vines encircled our waists. He grabbed at the roots again, wrenching them away. “Ignore them. Close your eyes and listen to me. Focus only on me. I want you to exhale to the count of four. Don’t breathe in. Just exhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Now inhale for the same count.” His hand went to the side of my neck and his thumb moved in short swipes against my pulse, to his counting. “Now breathe out for the same count. Don’t stop.”

I followed his instructions, not too different from what Holland had taught me. I breathed in for four counts and then exhaled for the same length. Nyktos quietly repeated the instructions, his chest rising and falling against my back in time with mine. Inhale. Exhale. Rise. Fall. Over and over as the roots wound their way around us, slapping over the hand at my neck, our shoulders—

“It’s not working,” a voice scratched from the shadows, sounding so very far away. I opened my eyes then, finding Rhain crouched before me. His eyes were wide as he broke off pieces of root. “You’ve got to stop this, Nyktos.” Black dust fell against his cheeks and into his reddish-gold hair. “Before it’s too late.”

Nyktos cursed behind me. The hand at my throat turned my head. Nyktos stared down at me, his skin too pale and too thin, but there were no shadows beneath his flesh. No eather filling his veins. Red marked his throat. Puncture wounds.

I jerked, pulling against his hold.

“Do it.” Rhain tore another root free. “Do it now, or she’s not only going to get herself killed but bring this whole damn palace down on our heads.”

“Fuck,” the Primal snarled, clasping the back of my head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His forehead touched mine briefly, and then he pulled back. “Listen to me, Seraphena.” Eather swirled through his eyes, and his voice…it was deeper, slower. “Stop fighting me and listen.”

I stopped struggling.

I listened.

Waited.

Once more an empty vessel.

A blank canvas.

And when Nyktos spoke again, it was just one word, both a whisper and a yell that reached deep inside me, seizing me. Taking control.

Sleep.

Chapter 30

I dreamt of my lake.

I was swimming. That was how I knew I was dreaming. I’d never learned how to swim, but I glided seamlessly through the cool, midnight water. I wasn’t alone. A lone figure sat on the bank, watching.

A white wolf.

The wolf waited in the shadows of the elms, its thick fur a lush silver in the fractured beams of moonlight.

I didn’t know how long I dreamed, but I swam and swam, full of peace. Surrounded by it.

The wolf waited.

My arms and legs didn’t grow tired. My skin didn’t wrinkle and prune. Neither hunger nor thirst found me. I swam above the water and then below.

And the beast waited.

“Sera.”

I slowly blinked open eyes that felt as if they’d been stitched closed. It took a moment for my vision to clear and for me to piece together the rounded cheeks and chin, the onyx-hued hair and eyes that tapered at the corners—irises a luminous silver.

“Bele?” I croaked, wincing at the scratchiness of my throat.

“My name is Nell.”

I inhaled sharply, surrounded by the scent of citrus and fresh air. “W-what?”

A quick grin pulled at her full lips. “I’m kidding.” The goddess looked over her shoulder and yelled, “She’s finally awake.”

I winced, my ears strangely sensitive. Finally awake? Bele disappeared from view, and I saw smooth, black walls and a long, deep couch. My head turned, and my heart stopped as my gaze landed on the small wooden box on the nightstand by the bed.

I was in the Primal’s bedchamber.

Memories surged through me—images of him and her in his office, the bite marks on his throat, and the crushing agony of my mad flight to the pool beneath the palace. The disappointment. The heartbreak—

No.

I wouldn’t go there. Wouldn’t feel that again—any of it. I started to sit up—

“Let’s not do that yet.” Rhain entered the chambers, the straps designed to hold his weapons hanging loosely across his chest.

I halted, remembering him being beneath the palace, breaking off…roots that had grown from the cracks I’d created in the foundation, witnessing my utter loss of control. My face warmed.

Rhain approached the bed I had no idea how I’d gotten into. “How are you feeling?” he asked, the line of his brows furrowed as he sat on the edge of the bed. He sounded concerned but also…relieved, and I didn’t understand why he would feel either of those two things.