Then the pull grew stronger.
The pang in my heart flared, and the tingling in my wrist spiked and spread through my body.
“Ziyka.”
“Ziyka.”
That name again. That voice. It whispered on the edge of the wind.
And now… I could pick out the faint depth of the voice.
It was a man.
It was him.
Wolfe.
I was sure of it now.
It was him.
I allowed the pull to take me.
“Ziykaaa!”
A swarm of darkness drifted over me, opened its gaping maw of desolation, and dragged me inside.
Pain erupted all over my body, pulling at my soul.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
It was like fingernails scratching against wood.
Scritch, scritch, scritchhhhh.
I bolted upright, out of sleep, out of… wherever I’d been.
My heart hammered against my ribs, and the phantom taste of ash coated my tongue.
The vision of grayness and darkness clung to my mind, its tendrils wrapping around my consciousness even as I fought to clear it.
For one terrifying moment, I couldn't tell if I was still trapped there, within the gripping claws of darkness. Then the fog cleared as my awareness returned, and I realized I was bathed in daylight. And in a bed chamber. One I didn’t recognize.
I dragged air into my lungs, forcing my racing pulse to slow as reality began to bleed back in and I realized I was safe.
I was safe, but in my sleep, I’d gone to that place again where I’d heard Wolfe calling to me.
A deep breath helped me steady my mind. I remembered Arielle, Bastian, my family, and the golden light that surrounded me as I went to sleep.
Did the spell work?
Was I back in the magical realm?
Or somewhere else.
I looked about me and took in my surroundings.
The bedchamber was grand and beautiful.
