Page 99 of Heart of the Shadow King

“I choose you, Faraine.

“Now choose me.

“Choose me.

“Choose me.”

He takes me in his arms. I am too big now to be held, spread across his entire world. Yet somehow, I rest against his breast, listen to the beat of his heart. Not the wild, frantic beat of a man about to be crushed to death. This is a steady pulse, stronger even than the pulse of the crystal. A measured beat that cannot, will not be broken.

“You are all I’ve ever needed. Your strength. And your weakness.”

This cannot be real. It must be the heat, the pressure, the desperation of my situation bringing such delusions to life in my mind.

But what if it’s true?

What if the old Faraine—not this Faraine, who is stone—what if she were here? What would she do now, faced with the dragon and the end of the world? Her power was not true power. It was weakness. It broke her down, made her small. Could it be that power simply wasn’t meant to be used on its own? Was it intended to work in tandem with this other side of my gift?

Feeling and stone.

Fire and rock.

Chaos and stillness.

In balance.

Indance.

I turn to Arraog, study her through a thousand eyes. Her pain is vast. I cannot contain it, cannot squeeze it small enough, tight enough to fit inva-jor. But I could let it out.

This is not what Maylin wanted,some part of my mind protests. But Maylin didn’t know all. Her gifts were not the same as mine. We share only our magic. But when the gods shaped me, they endowed me with other gifts as well.

It’s time I used them.

“Arraog!” I cry.

Though I am but a voice, echoing from a thousand stones, it seems as though the dragon fixes her rolling eye upon me. Her attention arrested, I let my own focus center, allowing a shimmering, phantom-self to appear in that space between this world and the next. Most cannot perceive that realm, but Arraog is a celestial being. She sees me. Small, naked, helpless, and weak. She sees me exactly as I am.

Her mouth opens. Lava bubbles up on her tongue.

Release me, dust-being.

Her voice nearly disintegrates this feeble form. But I hold on. “Give me your pain, Arraog,” I say.

Her eyes flash. A terrible laugh rumbles in her throat, splitting stone straight through to the upper crust of the world.

You cannot survive such pain. It will annihilate you.

I wave my spectral hand. Theurzulsing, and the layers ofva-jorsurrounding the dragon’s body and soul begin to disintegrate. A rush of feeling rolls out, striking me with a force too great, too incomprehensible for words. Were it not for myjor,were not my selfhood spread across this world, I would indeed be destroyed in that single instant. But I am not. Myjorholds. The crystals hum. I stand untouched in the midst of her despair.

But I must channel it. Before it destroys everything.

Slowly, with careful precision, I begin to peel back myjor. Not all at once and not completely. It’s all in the balance, the two sides of my gift: that which feels everything and that which feels nothing. Both powerful magic, neither meant to be used alone.

Flames lap the cavern walls. Lava roils, spewing great fountaining plumes, surrounding that quiet, small space where my phantom self stands. I hold out my arms, receive the song of theurzul,moving by its power through the center of chaos to where Arraog lies. She watches my approach. Whether she is surprised at my continued existence I cannot say. Perhaps dragons are beyond surprise. But she opens wide her jaw, and a swell of magma rolls forth, sweeps over me, burning away my form as fast as theurzulcan regenerate it. My physical body—far away and deeply wrapped injor—rocks, still held in Vor’s strong arms.

I keep coming. Narrowing that space between me and the dragon until I am directly in front of her, caught between her blazing-moon eyes. “Let me help you,” I say and stretch out my hand. She is the size of a world, a being unbound by natural laws. I am a speck. I am nothing.

But I place my hand on the ridges between her eyes and—

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