Page 77 of The Throne's Undoing

But he knew that she was beyond his reach as the hall erupted into thick darkness, and he was helpless to stop it.

Chapter 25

KALLIE

The room spun,and Kallie clutched the edge of the seat, her nails biting into it.

Ribbons of red and orange streaked across Kallie's vision, as if an artist had dipped their hand in paint and spread them across a canvas with no sense of direction. Her bones vibrated as the colors whirled around her, faster and faster with each passing second.

She bit down, her teeth squeezing together and her jaw popping as nausea rose inside her. Rising, rising,rising.

The moment Kallie questioned if she could hold on any longer, the world jerked to a stop.

Her body jolted forward, and the restraints yanked her back, the chains rattling on the floor.

Peeling her eyes open, she shook her head.

No...This isn't right.

Kallie squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them once more.

The candles and sea of color were gone as if they had never existed. A darkness thicker than the midnight sky blanketed the world surrounding her.

She looked around the room--or at least she thought she did, for she could not tell. There were no discernible shades of gray, no shadows, no pricks of light.

Kallie couldn't make out a single thing around her. It was as if all of the light had been completely sucked out of everything she could see.

The only thing that grounded her was the chair she sat on. She tried to take a deep breath, but smoke and sage filled her mouth, choking her.

A wave of panic rose in her throat, and her skin prickled.

Kallie blinked again and again, trying to wash away the darkness that permeated her vision. No matter what she did, however, she couldn'tseeanything.

What had Cetia done?

What world had she dropped Kallie into?

Was this a dream? A nightmare? Some weird plane she did not know existed?

Kallie recalled her father speaking about the strange happenings within the Tetrian queendom and the witch who ruled its land. But Kallie hadn't given her father's claims much thought. She had dismissed and ignored them.

But now...now she regretted not listening more closely when he spoke of the queen's wickedness.

What poisons had the queen--

Kallie stilled as a whisper kissed the air, making the hair on her neck stand on end. The words, however, were unintelligible, too quiet to parse.

She tried to grasp onto the faint syllables and hold onto them, but they slipped through her fingers like the sand on the shore. Whatever the words were, Kallie knew they were important. She could feel it within her bones, yet she couldn't prevent them from flying off into the spinning air.

"Who's there?" Kallie asked, voice shaking as goosebumps spread across her skin.

"Kalisandre."

Kallie jerked to the right, but she still couldn't see anything, only a single shade of darkness smeared across her eyes.

"Kalisandre."

Her name was even clearer and more urgent this time, yet Kallie still could not identify to whom it belonged.

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