My back arched in an impossible curve as I burned and then my stomach dropped as I slipped out of Riyan’s arm. His hand caught me around my waist before I fell and I screamed as his fingers pressed into myright side.
“Almost there, Serafina.” He waspleading.Pleading.
Riyan pulled us over the edge and took off in a sprint. Riyan’s heart pounded against me as I writhed in his arms. I punched him, kicked him, and gnashed my teeth—fighting through the pain as much asI could.
“Riyan,” I spat out, “Iam sorry.”
For trying to kill him. For failing to manipulate Fraleigh. For thinking he was just a drunk anda brute.
For not giving him a chance fromthe beginning.
“No, don’t you say goodbye, Serafina.” His breath warmed my body against the bleak,dark fire.
Riyan stopped and quickly lowered me to the ground. Cold, dewey pebbles pressed against my back. He gently, yet swiftly, removed the cape around my neck. He slid his hand under my back and lifted me up off the ground as the cape disappeared from my shoulders. My whole body shiveredand convulsed.
Riyan’s voice shook. “Sera, I need to take your clothes off. You have to get in thehealing spring.”
“No!” I cried. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and bared my teeth as my limbs fought against the pain. Water would not put out the black fire. I would rather die by flamethan drown.
“I will not let you die too!”Riyan cried.
I cracked open my eyes. Black streaks stained his chest from where he had held me. I removed my right hand from the side of my ribs and looked at my palm—it was completelystained black.
I closed my eyes. My body went limp. He still thought I wasworth saving.
“Scared…,” I whimpered. “Iam…so scared.”
“If you can be brave, I can be brave.” Riyan’s voice was like a trumpet’s call across a field. Strong. Shaking. Desperate. “You’re going to take a swim and I’ll talk about my first battle with thegiants. Deal?”
I opened my eyes. Riyan knelt over me, but I could barely see his face. My vision faded. Nordingaard swirled into a hazy grey, trapping me in the nothingness like I was in that jar ofpaint water.
“Deal,”I whispered.
Right as the word left my lips, Riyan’s strong hands ripped the leather waist cincher off my torso with one tug. He tore off my shirt, my skirt, and then each of my stockings and shoes. I was cold, naked, and exposed as I convulsed blindly onthe rocks.
Splash.Warm water closed its jaws around me, but I was no longer in the greypaint water.
The world had turned as blackas Death.
My body was an empty shell drifting in the dark abyss. My arms and legs dangled around me, weightless. Water gently lapped the sides of my eyes. My hair softly brushed against my shoulders andmy back.
My eyes would not open. Breath escaped my barely parted lips in soft puffs. My ears were submerged and I listened to the rhythmic, underwater rumbles of another life in the water with me. Skin brushed against my back. Muscle held me steady inthe water.
Another low rumble disturbed the water and tickled my skin. The vibration was not a twitch of muscle or a flutter of breath, but a smooth,strong voice.
“Iwas fifteen…”
My eyes opened. I was in a rocky, snow-covered plain and looking up at a tall mountain pass. The tall rocks on either side of the pass loomed menacingly. A thick white fog rolled between them onto the plain before dissipating into the chilledmountain air.
Hundreds of boys holding pitchforks and axes quietly moved about, all wearing the plain grey, brown, and green garb of farmers and villagers. A small group of no more than two dozen stiff-backed soldiers in the blue uniforms of the Duke’s army stood at attention in front of a tall man with white-blondehair—General Hyton.
Suddenly I was right beside him. His sparkling Hyton Blue eyes were at the level of mine, but that was impossible. He toweredover me…
“Any minute now, the first giant will smell us and appear through that pass,” General Hyton boomed. “Once the first giant falls, aim your swords for the weak points of the body: ankles, the backs of the knees, the wrists, and especiallythe neck.”
A man stood one head taller than the rest of the group. No, he was not a man, but a boy. The only boy amongst them. A red cape fell from the shoulders of his uniform—Riyan. Teenage Riyan stood at attention with the other soldiers. His face was steel, yet fear clung around his shoulders like anicy mist.
I wanted to walk over to him, but I could not. I had no feet. Or legs. Or even hands. I floated as if I were air around the groups of men. I could not speak. I could not touch anything. I could only watch helplessly as young Riyan trembled amongst the menaround him.
