Fleurie brought me here? Brought me here and left me?
With my lungs trying to expel the last of the smoke, I rest on a broken wall, careful to stay in the shadows, trying to be quiet, and set to mending my burned arm.
Only I can’t. I can see the threads, but I cannot weave them back to rights, no matter how hard I try.
I blink and look at myself, at the exposed skin showing through my badly burned dress, the starry fabric marked with holes and an uneven singed hem. My witch’s marks aren’t visible, yet I’m not maintaining a glamour.
It’ll fix itself, I tell myself mentally, trying to keep my nerves from fraying worse.
I get up and try to move around. I don’t know what to do. I’m here, and I might be able to find Thamaos’s bones and bring him back to the Summerlands, but I could also get trapped. I can’t be sure of anything. I just need to go home. I need to find Alexus. He is my home.
Thinking of him, I close my eyes and seek the abyss.
It isn’t there.
Gods. Panic scratches at my chest, and my eyes shoot open, my body shaking. Try again, Raina. You just landed too hard.
I do try again, but still. Nothing.
I need to sit down. Again, I prop my hip on the broken wall. This is a bad omen. It’s just a result of my poor landing, I’m sure. It rung my head to hit the earth so hard. Or maybe I’m exhausting the ability, and it needs time to recover between uses.
Turning, I study the city again. Something isn’t right, but I can’t place it. A long look at the guards flanking the temple entry, and I realize they’re dressed differently than the prince’s guards usually dress. Longer tunics, a different shade. Mail, but no cuirasses.
Restless, I walk through the ruins to an opening that looks out over a small pond and a copse of willows. Something about that view feels familiar, but again, I’m too rattled to make any sort of connection.
Footsteps sound at my back, but before I can move, an arm slings around my neck, and the tip of a knife digs into my chin.
“Mistake,” a male voice says, only it’s edged with more of an accent than I’ve ever heard from an Eastlander.
I unsheathe Vexx’s dagger and send it up behind me in an arc, ramming the tip into the man’s face. He screams and stumbles back, his head still caught on my weapon.
Don’t think about Finn, Raina. Don’t.
I spin and yank the blade free, bringing his eye and other matter with it. It’s a fatal twist. The man drops to his knees, then falls face first against me.
I scuttle out of the way, let him hit the ground, then scrape my blade on a stone. In the next instant, two more guards enter the ruins.
Then two more.
For a moment, I hold my dagger at the ready in one hand, even though I’m still trembling, and I summon a struggling ball of fire in the other. But suddenly, the fire in my hand dissolves, like one of the men standing before me sucked it away.
I turn and run toward the willows, only I quickly realize I got turned around, and I’m running toward the temple.
The guards chase me, but I’m not as fast as usual, my body too weary, my lungs filled with smoke.
My heart pounds with every stride, a sweat breaking across my brow. I try my fire again but… nothing.
Panic swallows me, and when my attacker’s body slams into mine, we fall, hard, skidding across the grass, sending my dagger flying from my hand.
Pointlessly, I reach for it, but the man’s weight is too much.
I turn my head to get a glimpse of him, but all I see is the silver butt of a hilt a second before he knocks it against my skull.
76
RAINA
Up the stairs we go and through a maze of torchlit corridors I could never retrace. The guards lead me outside, into a courtyard brimming with blooms and boughs. The grass is soft between my toes, and the night air is sultry, the sky filled with winking stars.
