“I need you to wake up,” I order, but really, it’s a plea pulled from the pit of my soul. What if sheneverwakes up? What if that clinging seed of rot has taken root inside of her and won’t let her go?
The whole reason I used my magic on her was to stop her from draining herself to death. But I made it fucking worse. I made it worse, and now my own power is lashing out against me like a thousand serpents ready to bite, while she’s been tainted with my magic.
My head drops, forehead pressing against hers, my hands still on her cold cheeks. “Don’t do this,” I plead, eyes shut tight. “You’re stronger than this, Goldfinch. You are. So. Wake.Up.”
She doesn’t.
“Fuck!” Jerking upright, my fist pummels the snow beside me, the meat of my hand splitting open from the sharp ice packed into the ground. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I can hear Digby fighting like hell against the others, cursing me, threats and profanity slung against my back like a whip. Beating me with the realization—
“I did this.” Three words cut from the keenest guilt.
Lu’s lips press together at my declaration. “Soundoit.”
“I fucking tried!” I snap, frustration bringing my hand up to drive through my hair. “Iamtrying.”
I can’t think straight. My pulse is pounding at my temples, the ground is shaking beneath my feet, something is roaring in my ears. My magic wails inside of me, bleeding into my irises, making me see lines that are not there. I’m pouring rot out now, too much, too fast, making it melt down into the ground, weakening the earth, spoiling its surface.
I hear shouts, or maybe that’s the wind or the power bucking in my bones.
“Rip, your power...”
My entire body is shaking, every inch of my skin being prodded and stretched, wanting to lash out, and my rot starts to flood the ground, reaching, hissing, wanting to spread andexplode…
BAM!
I go flying back at the force of a fist to my face, falling back into the snow for the second time in the course of a minute, once again stunned.
“Get your shit together,” my brother fumes over me, kneeling even as he lifts me back up from where he sucker punched me. My furious eyes latch onto his face. “You’re leaking rot all over the Divine-damned place. Suck it upright now. You don’t have the luxury of losing control.”
I blink, Ryatt’s snapped words somehow grounding me to the present. A glance down shows that the snow at our feet is browned and sickly, veins like poisonous threads come to spread their toxins. It stretches out in a perfect circle, spoiling the ground and sucking up the moisture from the snow, collapsing it in rubbled ruin.
I take a breath and fist my hands, managing to pull it back before my power can spread any further, managing to pull it back in and in andin...
“You got it?” Ryatt demands.
“I got it,” I snarl at him.
“Good.” He lets me go, and I equal parts want to slam my own fist into his face and thank him for snapping me out of the power pull.
Turning away, I find all of my Wrath and Digby huddling around Auren. Judd casts me a wary look. “She’s breathing, that’s a good sign,” he says, as if that will settle me.
“But she’s not waking up.”
“Did you get all of it?” Lu asks, hands dancing around Auren’s sleeves, not quite touching her, just in case.
“Something is wrong. I couldn’t get the last piece out.”
Lu’s eyes go wide, and I hear someone else suck in a breath.
“Maybe I waited too long.”
“What does that mean?” Digby asks.
I shake my head at my own loss.
“Well, we need a plan,” Lu says, standing up and dusting herself off before she casts a look at the sky. “This storm is coming, and coming in fast. What do you wanna do?”
