Someone else, Alex, began stroking my hair. I focused on his hand on my head, needing a grounding point.
The aether that Ayla and Lyon sent through me burned hotter and more intense by the second. My nerve endings fried, and the heat burst the blisters that Ishtar’s magic had seared onto my skin.
I released a yowl of pain, and my entire body tensed.
Alex stopped stroking my hair. “What’s going on?”
“She’s reacting to the aether,” Sana answered.
“That, and,” Ayla panted, and though I couldn’t see her, I sensed the effort rolling off of her in waves. “There’s something inside her that I’ve never seen before. I think you might be right that Ishtar’s black magic was blocking your healing. I can feel Odette’s witch power, but it’s weak.”
“Very weak,” Lyon agreed. “And an oily, corrosive blackness is surrounding it.”
“Trying to snuff it out . . .” Alex said as if he finally understood. “But if she’s truly a godling, would that be enough to kill her?”
There was a pause in which I willed someone to speak, to take my mind off the pain flying through my veins, burning me up from the inside out.
“Perhaps,” Ayla said. “Ishtar is a fallen goddess, so she might know how to kill godlings. But aether is the power of the old gods. Those that never fell. If anything will save her, it’s aether.”
My jaw clenched, and I gnashed my teeth, trying to piece together Ayla’s words and what I’d learned from Ishtar.
After a few moments, I understood that only one thing was certain.
There was a part of me I didn’t understand. And if I didn’t understand it, then Ishtar sure as shit didn’t either. Pushing away the pain so I could concentrate, I searched the crevices of my body, of my soul, for the missing piece.
To my utmost surprise, it made itself known right away, like it had been waiting for me to turn inward and find it. I marveled at the bright ball of white light within my heart, watched as it bloomed open through the darkness of Ishtar’s toxic power.
Ayla gasped, and I knew that by seeking the magic, I was onto something.
I looked deeper, through the thick, black gas, and in response, the light pulsed.
Help?
A sense of déjà vu crashed over me. How many times had I asked the bright glowing light of Morgan’s necklace for help? Was this the same? Had I been talking to an aspect of aether magic all along?
Accept the aether,a voice, ancient and all-knowing, called to me.Let it fill you. And use it.
That’s it? I only need to relax and let Ayla’s aether in?
Even as I considered it, the act seemed impossible. The sensation of aether running through me wasn’t as horrible as Ishtar’s attack, but dammit, it still hurt.
Release and live. Fight and die,the voice said, and the light pulsed again, beating back Ishtar’s swaths of black.
Her power moved faster now, perhaps knowing that I was seeking help. That I was close to understanding.
Not about to waste any more time, I took a deep, shuddering breath, and relaxed every muscle, bone, and tendon in my body so that the aether might take me over.
CHAPTERFORTY-FIVE
The moment I gave myself over to what could be, aether flooded through me like water raging down a river.
It quenched the fires burning inside me.
The pain lifted slowly, like a sunrise.
Light beat back the dark.
Ishtar’s poisonous gas dissolved, and the parts of me it tried to kill, throbbed with life.
