A hand grabbed her leg.
She screeched and jumped back to her feet. Hands emerged from the water. Grabbing at her. Her heart ricocheted and nearly burst out of her chest.
Amber fire caught her eye. She looked up, only to find the creature looking back at her, and Nyssa forgot about the hands around her ankles.
Her form stared at her from inside the glass. Fire in her eyes. Black lightning streaks along her cheeks and trickling down her neck. As though her nerves sat on the surface of her skin, and fire was trying to push out from the inside.
Her form winked.
—Nyssa shot upright.
Breath uneven and not catching. She couldn't bring herself to reality. The image of herself as that creature imprinted in her mind and clouding her vision.
Hands grasped her face.
"Hey—“
A familiar voice. A safe voice.
Smoke rose from the sheets, and as she looked up, she caught sight of the mirror in the corner.
The creature was watching her.
Nyssa screamed and jolted into the arms of the person at her side.
"Get out—“ she begged. Hands wrapping over her eyes, she pushed her palms into her face. Shaking and trembling beneath the obscurity of what she had become.
"Get out," she pleaded again through the wails. "Get out. Get out. Get out."
"Nyssa—“
The person touched her waist, and the next thing she knew, she was staring down her outstretched arm—
And Nadir's throat was in her blackened hand.
Reality gripped her.
She released him like poison. Her heart filled with panic. She backed up against the headboard and pulled her knees to her chest. Nadir doubled over, coughing and holding to his neck where red blisters had formed.
She had hurt him, and she didn't even remember it.
Tears streaming down her face, she rocked back and forth.
She had hurt him.
She had hurt Nadir.
Nadir.
Full reality sank in. Where she'd been. The night she'd escaped. Seeing him, Bala, and Lex on the beach when she came out of the void.
Back on his beach.
Safe.
"Nadir?" she managed through the sobs.
Nadir’s eyes were swollen and red. But he pushed up to her side, apparently ignoring how she'd just hurt him, and he was shaking when he said, "Hello, Princess."
