My hand has flown over my mouth. “Tamra…”
“Creation magic did this,” she says. “Ourmagic did this.”
“We have to stop it,” I say. “It has to be stopped.”
But she’s shaking her head. “Our magic—even our presence here—only makes it worse.” Then she twists away from me to call down to Thaden. “Bring us down!”
I can see him turning the winch. He didn’t hesitate, but our descent feels too slow.
There’s apull. A terrible, horrible pull.
Out on the plains, the dust storms change direction. They are, all of them, suddenly headed in our direction.
Tamra’s speaking, but I can’t hear her because my ears are buzzing with the echo of my own scream.
Wake up, wake up, wake up…
And then, even that echo is drowned out by the cruel impulses that used to assail me when I wore Malak’s tools.
Take control of the light and the dark.
Fight the old and find the new?—
“Get me down!” I gasp for air, desperate to breathe. “Get me down. Now!”
My vision blurs, and all I can hear, all I can feel, is the darkness pressing in on me until a final whisper sends a chill down my spine.
You will come to me. You won’t have a choice.
Chapter 33
“It’s okay.” My sister’s voice breaks through the buzzing in my ears. “You’re okay!”
Her arms are around me. My legs must have given way because we’ve sunk to the platform, and she’s half-crouched beside me.
There’s athumpas the platform reaches the ground.
“Water!” Tamra calls. “We need water!”
Thaden’s already running, pumping water from the fountain before returning to hold out a ladle of liquid to me.
I gulp it down, attempting to clear my thoughts.
“What happened?” he asks Tamra.
Her eyes are wide. “She went white, and then she collapsed.”
His brow is furrowed as he crouches to me. “Asha? Are you okay?”
I can’t possibly explain the awful pull or the impulses that felt like they were both a part of me and outside me at the same time.
“I’m fine.” I groan as I try to push myself upright. “I’m okay.”
Thaden and Tamra give each other worried looks.
“Maybe the rest of it needs to wait,” Thaden says, a question in his voice.
“The rest of what?” I ask, wondering how there could possibly be more than what I just saw.
