A different sort of fear caught her.
This was fear she hadn’t expected.
Shaking, Nyssa opened her eyes, and she nearly jumped out of her body at what she saw.
Black smoke surrounded her knees.
She pulled her hands back—
And a petrified scream left her lungs.
Her hands wereblack.
Black lightning streaks like Dorian's pulsed up her arms. But it was not blue flames beneath the lines. It was amber and obsidian.
She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.
She was onfire.
Terror gripped her to her spine.
She couldn't have fire. Dorian had fire.
Her lungs nearly collapsed. She buried her head beneath her hands, pressing her eyes together in the hopes it would all be a nightmare.
Back and forth.
But her body continued to shred and burn.
She knew she would vomit at any moment. Her limbs felt as though they didn't exist. This was fear unlike anything she'd ever experienced.
What was happening to her?
The ocean crashed a few feet ahead. She forced herself to focus on getting to it, to put herself out of whatever this was before it grew out of control. But she couldn't find her limbs to move.
As though another was moving her, she felt wet sand beneath her nails. She was on her stomach, and she didn't know how she'd gotten there. The water curled over her hands, and her entire body shuddered violently, almost like it was hurting her. Nyssa screamed again, vision going in and out.
This can't be real, she told herself.This isn't real.
—She was back in the Throne Room.
It was the day of her and Dorian's markings.
They'd gone into that pool together. Arbina had stood at the edge of it, Rhaif and Aydra to the side, Vasilis and Zoria on their thrones.
Only eight at the time, together, she and Dorian had been terrified. She could still see him writhing beside her under the water as it cut through her skin for her eagle mark. But Dorian... Dorian had screamed as though his insides were being ripped out of him. Nyssa had taken his hand while they were under…
—Reality jolted her back with a great heave.
The ocean sloshed around her, and she coughed, hands pressing into the ground. Water spewed from her lungs as though she'd just been drowning. The sea rushed and crashed over her body again. Nyssa forced herself up to her knees and then crawled backward out of the surf.
She noted then that she was completely naked.
Her heart continued to throb in her ears as she replayed the moment of her and Dorian's markings. She had felt his agony when she took his hand. She had felt the pulse of his form in her own core.
Her eagle screeched overhead. He was having a fit. He shrieked over her almost in a scream. Nyssa pushed every thought to the back of her mind. The ringing in her ears faded slowly as she willed her breaths to calm.
She couldn't get the image of her streaked hands out of her head, but as she looked down at her palms, she wondered if it had all been a trick of her exhausted mind.
