Page 35 of Spark of the Everflame

Suddenly, it launched off its hind legs and sprang toward me. I raised my hands to protect my vulnerable neck, eyes squeezing closed as I anticipated the impact.

Destroy.

A blinding flash glowed red through my clenched eyelids. A yelp—followed by a soft hiss.

Then deafening quiet.

The acrid stink of singed fur burned the inside of my nose. I dared to open my eyes.

Hanging in the air was a cloud of ash, a million particles floating like delicate snow to dust the glittering black stone fragments now scattered along the forest floor.

The wolf was gone.

No.Impossible.

The wolf had beenright there. I had seen it, I’d smelled it.

I looked down at my hands again. They still shone with that same bizarre light, now fainter and fading fast.

Understanding crashed into me. I had felt these things once before in my life, a long time ago. A time I’d tried desperately to forget.

I sprinted back to the campsite and tumbled to my knees in front of my pack.

“Diem?” Henri called out groggily. “Is everything alright?”

I ignored him as I ransacked my belongings, growing more and more frantic. “Where is it?” I muttered to myself. “Come on—please be here.”

Frustrated, I turned the bag over until the contents scattered over the forest floor. It was an avalanche of food, weapons, undergarments, books—everything but the one thing I needed.

“Diem, what are you looking for?”

I couldn’t answer. I didn’t trust myself—didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust the moon above my head or the soil beneath my feet. If my theory was right, nothing was safe from its touch.

I turned over every item, murmuringwhere is itin an increasingly rabid chant. I untied the small suede pouch of medicinal supplies I’d brought along, hoping I’d placed it inside, but the vial was nowhere to be found.

The weight of Henri’s hand on my shoulder startled me. He gave it a warm, firm squeeze.

Real—that was real.

His touch felt like an anchor, a heavy weight that sank through the tempestuous sea of my panic and lodged me in solid ground.

But it was something else stuck in a bed of sand under the rolling waves that consumed me—the jars of flameroot I’d hurled into the Sacred Sea. Even the spare dose I normally kept in my satchel was gone.

“No!” I couldn’t stop shouting it. Maybe if I said it enough times, it would be true. “No, no, no, no...”

My entire body trembled violently.What was I thinking?A few weeks without symptoms, and I’d believed myself cured forever? I’d been so unforgivably hasty.

The part of my brain that belonged to a calm, professional healer tried to tell me that I was in shock, too much adrenaline going one way and too little blood going the other. My wiser conscience pleaded with me to lie down and breathe, but every movement felt too far outside of my control.

If my fears were right—oh gods, if this was true...

Henri kneeled beside me. “Diem, talk to me. What’s going on?”

“My powder.” My voice came out scratchy, fractured. “I—I need my powder.”

Bless the Undying Fire, he knew what I meant. Henri was the only person outside my family that I’d ever told about the flameroot. Even Maura didn’t know—another choice my mother had insisted on but refused to explain.

“I’ll help you look. Calm down, it’ll be alright.”

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