I can’t answer.The mark is burning so badly I can’t breathe, can’t think, can only feel the pain radiating through every nerve ending.It’s like the shadow is inside me, trying to claw its way out through my skin.
Or trying to claw its wayin.
Prophet appears in the destroyed doorway, his hands still moving in those complex patterns.The golden light around him intensifies, taking on a physical presence, and when he speaks, his voice echoes with power.
“By the covenant of the first seal, by the blood of the wardens, I command you: retreat!”
The shadowscreams.
It’s not a sound.It’s worse.It’s a sensation that drives into my skull like nails, makes my vision white out, makes blood trickle from my nose.The mark on my shoulder feels as though it’s tearing apart, like something is trying to rip it off my body from the inside.
I scream too, and I can’t stop.
Vex’s hands frame my face, his cold fingers shocking against my burning skin.“Tessa!Look at me!Look at me!”
I try.God, I try.But the pain is too much, too overwhelming, and all I can do is sob and shake as the shadow and the mark war inside me.
Then Prophet is there, his hand slamming down on my shoulder directly over the mark.
The effect is instantaneous and brutal.
The mark goes from molten agony to absolute zero in a heartbeat, and the shock of it is so intense I convulse.But with the cold comes clarity, just for a second, and in that second I understand.
The creature can’t fully manifest here.The wards Prophet blessed this place with years ago are holding it back.But it can project through the mark.Use me as an anchor.Turn me into a doorway it can pour through.
And the only way to stop it is to break the connection.
Which means hurting me.
“Do it,” I gasp, the words tasting like blood.“Whatever you have to do, just do it!”
Prophet’s eyes meet mine, and there’s sorrow there.Regret.Then his jaw sets and he presses down harder on the mark, and his other hand begins to glow with that same golden light.
“Forgive me,” he whispers.
Then he burns it.
Not with fire.With something purer, something that feels like concentrated sunlight and righteous fury and divine judgment all rolled into one.It sears into the mark, into me, and the pain is transcendent.
I’m dimly aware of screaming.Of Vex holding me down as I thrash.Of the shadow in the hallway shrieking in tandem with me, its tendrils thrashing wildly before suddenly collapsing into themselves.
Then everything goes white.
When I come back to myself, I’m in Vex’s arms.
He’s lifted me off the floor, cradling me against his chest as though I weigh nothing, and his eyes are back to their normal dark color.The frost is receding from the hallway, melting away as if it was never there, and the emergency light flickers back to life.
The shadow is gone.
So is the agony.
The mark on my shoulder still hurts, a deep, bone-aching throb, but the burning cold is gone.I reach up with a shaking hand to touch it and find it’s different somehow.Changed.The black frost pattern is still there, but fainter, like someone tried to erase it and didn’t quite succeed.
“You’re okay,” Vex is saying, his voice rough.“You’re okay, you’re safe, I’ve got you.”
I want to believe him.
But looking at the destroyed doorframe, at Hollywood being tended to by Blade and Fury, at the way every single brother in this hallway is staring at me with varying degrees of fear and wariness, I know the truth.
