The beast has the taste of my blood and he’ll come back for me and my family.
He will strike in the dark of night with claws and teeth, and my family will die because of me.
Deep in the mire of fear is the faintest light.
Strands of silver. Snowflakes caught on eyelashes. A soft hand, icy cold.
Asha.
Her scent draws me from the darkness to the tree, where her hair is caught and her body is half-covered in snow.
I inhale the air around her and my chest fills with power. Her power, rising from a spark that glows across her left side.
She is ours.
We must save her.
I scratch at the snow with my claws, determined to free her, slowly becoming aware that…
I don’t have claws and I’m much closer to the ground than I ever was on two feet, and that I can smell and hear everything around me. The falling snow. The rustle of the leaves. Her quiet breathing.
She is ours.
We must keep her alive.
With a strike of clarity, I recognize that these memories and these impulses aren’t mine.
Skirra?
His instincts resonate through me, and I understand him as clearly as if he spoke to me.
Stop burning your light and wake up, Vandawolf,he snarls into my mind.You have work to do.
I open my eyes.
Chapter 39
The screaming has stopped, but the air still smells like blood.
Raindrops patter across my body, while the sounds around me are amplified within my ears. I hear every scrape and scuttle, every scamper and thud.
There are rats in the courtyard walls.
A human woman hides in the back of a room within the maze of corridors. Her heartbeats hammer in my hearing while she sobs quietly.
There are more humans underground somewhere close by, their heartbeats slow, their breathing labored.
But closer to me is a presence so dark that it rends the very air apart.
I slide off the table and onto the ground, landing lightly on the cobbled stone before I draw myself upright.
My point of view has changed from before Malak chained me to the table. It’s higher now as if I’ve grown taller. The weight of my body has also altered. Heavier, but stronger.
My tattered shirt slips away from my torso and slaps the ground, sodden with blood.
Within my heart is a single spark of deep light. The final spark that, if I draw on it, will force my death, but I tuck it away, committing it to Skirra’s care. He will ensure I never access it.
My light is no longer available to me, but a new power has replaced it.
