Page 42 of Tortured

“It has a piece of my soul in it.” Gilmar winces. “I always know when she’s doing stuff with it. Like intimate stuff.”

I choke on my water and spew it all down my shirt. And I thought my three-way bond was rough. I’ve never met a pixie, but I know to stay away from anything with wings and that is less than a foot tall.

Everyone else roars. “You like it,” Riahn says. “I still see you stiffen every now and then and then you run off to be alone.”

“I did not need to know about that.” Tension suddenly clamps down on my heart. My chest burns with fire. I leap to my feet as some sort of thread that holds me bound to Niawen drags my subconscious across the void to her.

This is not one of our usual visions. Evening is just falling in her part of the world, and I’m there with her, just like the time she appeared to me on the boat when she was seasick.

“Niawen? What is it?” She’s frozen on the hillside outside her cottage, looking at her daughter—

And that dreaded mountain cat. The beast is between them, with its focus on Ahnalyn.

No. Caedryn. “Get out of here,” I yell. Why aren’t I seeing through the eyes of the cat? Why aren’t I connected to Caedryn in a way that I can stop him?

Niawen doesn’t answer me. Maybe she can’t see me. “Niawen?” I grab for her hand, but she doesn’t move. My hand feels cold as it passes through her.

Niawen starts glowing, not anything outward that I can tell, but a tiny dot of light builds in her core and creeps into her extremities.

Her light is such a small amount. After all these years, she hasn’t built it back to full strength.

Her light won’t be enough to help her. Not to make a shield, not to use it as a weapon, not to heal her should she become injured. I know this from my time with my team. They carry enough light to make it useful, but not Niawen.

Up on the hill, Ahnalyn is just as still as her mother, her eyes wide with terror.

Where is Owein? Why are they alone?

“Back away, Ahnalyn,” I beg.

She doesn’t move. She can’t hear me. Of course not. Nor can she see me either.

I fumble at my hip for my knife. My hands pass right through the weapon, through me.

Am I not real? What is happening?

And then the animal turns away from Ahnalyn.

As it leaps at Niawen, I catch the depraved look in its eyes.

I dart in front of her, but the cat plows right through me and crashes into Niawen with unparalleled speed—

Just as a blast of light hits them, shooting right through me from behind.

A sickening crunch fills my ears.

The crunch of bones. Her bones. The cat’s bones.

I whirl around to see Ahnalyn’s terrified face.

She used her light. She unleashed an attack.

And I understand. Ahnalyn is untrained. Has no idea of the power within her.

She doesn’t understand what happened—

That her light struck her mother and the cat.

I spin to face Niawen. The beast’s claws hit its mark—that of Niawen’s chest.

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