SIX
EMBER
The greatest Dark Deals are the innocuous ones, the ones a five-year-old would make.
— Jaxan D’Oron, Echelon to the
School of Dark Magic
Ifelt the tips of my fingers first, raw, aching with a sensation like straight blades had been jammed under my fingernails. Then there was the brutal weight pressing into my thighs.
Leland.
“Ember?” The sound of my name was thick with frustration, like this wasn’t his first time trying to wake me. I wanted to fall back asleep and forget he was there, but Leland started snapping his fingers in front of my eyelids a few seconds into me trying.
My eyes peeled open, and the first thing I did was glare. The pressure on my thighs was him straddling me, my legs sandwiched between his knees. He had me pinned on my back, still in the Circle of Seven, still in the middle of the clearing, encircled by a band of towering, ash-brown trees. I arched my back to distance it from a root as hard as stone that was digging into my spine, but with Leland on top of me, relief was only temporary.
“Get off of me,” I yelled at him. “Leland,” I repeated. “I said get off.”
“What the hell just happened?” he asked, remaining right where he was. His eyes were fixed on me, in what wasnot quitea ruthless scowl, but definitely threatening.
I braced my hands on the ground for leverage. More pressure was applied to my legs in response.
“Tell me what happened after the last tree bent,” he said. “Why this crack opened in the ground. Why your hands are covered in the divine soil.”
It was too much. I had to look away from him — down and away to his strong forearms.
“I need to know you didn’t mean to do this,” he said.
I couldn’t answer, let alone think. “Leland?”
A wide and bruising pain was lighting up my back, and something rushed through my veins, something so hot and unbearable I nearly screamed. Again, I attempted to squirm out from beneath him, determined to muscle him off, but that just created friction.
I looked away, stretched my neck to its limits, and screamed into the dirt.
When I turned back, panting, I found him examining my hands. All around me, soil was upturned and clumped in messy piles. A wide crevice ran jagged across the clearing. Then there was me. Dirty. Messy. Caked in mud. A thick layer of dirt was shoved deep beneath my nails. I’d ruined Leland’s sweatshirt. My shoes, which I couldn’t see around the wall of Leland’s chest, were probably ruined too.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked. “I feel . . .”Hot.Restless.Burning with a need so insatiable it hurts. “I feel . . .”
“Ripping? Burning? Like you need me to drive you into the ground?”
Like I needed him to drive me into the ground wasexactlyhowit felt, that need a demon, my blood a boiling whirlpool. The ache between my legs was even worse.
“I forced you down because I thought you were digging up the roots. It looked like you were. I couldn’t let it go on. I couldn’t stand there, watching you destroy Everden’s magic source . . .”
“Please get off,” I begged.
He must have felt sorry for me, because he did, backing off just enough for me to sit. Though his muscles stayed tense, a threat that if I tried to run, I wouldn’t get far.
“You need to drink this,” he said, indicating the silver flask in his hand.
Yeah, no, I thought, and turned my head. I would not be drinking any liquids fromhim.
“Moonale,” he said. “It’s alcohol. Doesn’t taste very good but it helps with withdrawal.”
“Withdrawal?” I asked, not that I even wanted an answer from him. Even if hewastelling the truth about it helping with whatever this was, I didn’t wantalcohol. After the Fourth of July — after finishing a warm bottle of champagne alone in my room — I was never drinking again.
“Magic withdrawal,” said Leland. “Something every Seven goes through. I would’ve handed you the flask sooner, but you’re — ” He didn’t seem to have an answer. “I didn’t know what it would feel like for you. If you’d feel anything at all.”
