Page 170 of What Blooms from Death

As he stumbled away with a furious sound—still more from annoyance than actual pain, I feared—I again focused on Grimnor, crawling a few feet before reaching out and trying to pull it into my hand.

The sword hovered in the air, tipping toward me. But though my hold on it was firm, my control was shaky. I’d lost too much magic. Too much blood. I was too weak. Too slow. Too unbalanced. My attempt to reel it more precisely into my grip failed, dropping it at the feet of Lorien as he stepped back to me.

I tried to stand and ended up falling to my knees instead, the jolting motion making the blood flow more freely from the wounds along my neck and chest.

The room spun.

I would have vomited if I’d had the energy for it. Instead, I braced a hand against the floor and closed my eyes again, desperately trying to focus, to find another surge of power like the one I’d felt moments ago. It was swirling deep in my gut, like a deep, dangerous current hidden beneath calm waters. If only I could have reached it without drowning. Somehow,I had to reach it—

Lorien took a step toward me. A single step that echoed through the chamber. Through my very being. Then he stopped, and a strange noise escaped him—a sort of strangled laugh, full of disbelief and some other charged emotion I couldn’t readily name.

I heard him…retreating.

I blinked my eyes open and gasped.

I was surrounded by shadowy figures. No less than a dozen spectral men and women had appeared in front of me, and they continued taking shape as I watched. Their forms shifted between solid and ethereal, like the lingering afterimage of a dream. But their eyes—those started sharp and stayed that way, gleaming with a bright, otherworldly clarity as they took in their surroundings.

After a moment of staring, mouth agape, I realized I recognized the one in the very center. She stood taller than the others, her silhouette sharp and distinct against the swirling mass of figures, her long, dark hair dancing unnaturally, as if caught in a phantom wind…

Judging by the way his face had drained of all color, Lorien recognized her, too.

Calista.

And all the others around her…were theyallpast Shadow Vaelora? Had I summoned them here, somehow? The weakness rapidly overtaking my body suggested as much—that they were made from, or at least tethered to, the shadows within me.

This was staggeringly powerful magic.

But I could already feel my hold on it slipping.

Lorien no longer seemed interested in trying to cut me apart. His attention had shifted to the shadows moving over his skin. Similar to the ones that appeared on mine, because they werecaused by the same magic—the magic he’dstolen.

He didn’t dare cross the line of my predecessors to resume his torture of me, but with my stolen shadows wrapping around him like armor, he managed to pick up Grimnor.

He looked to the door, calculating.

I struggled to my feet. Fear of letting him escape with that sword made me oblivious to the pain racking through my body. Indifferent to my exhaustion, my dizziness, to the dangerous amount of power I could feel building around him.

But as soon as I staggered forward, Calista’s gaze jerked toward mine. Like the others around her, her eyes were the only part of her that remained focused and bright. As I stared into them, I stopped moving, as though under a spell, overcome by a sudden urge to save my strength. To focus on surviving and nothing else. And I would have sworn I heard a voice, soft and determined, though the shadow-specter’s lips never moved—

This is not how it ends.

Calista turned away. She lifted her hands. The other figures followed her lead, and a veil of darkness rose up with the motion, driving Lorien farther back, pushing him more violently toward the doors.

Protecting me.

Reluctantly, I sank to my knees once more, reaching for my wounds. My hand came away covered in crimson. My breathcaught in my throat, and I couldn’t seem to resume my normal breathing, no matter how hard I tried. Every gasping attempt sent another wave of agony rushing through me.

The sentinels before me began to lose their shape, bleeding into the dark wall they’d created.

My chest felt as if it was cracking apart from the effort of trying to inhale.

So much blood.

So much darkness.

So little air.

The last clear image I saw before succumbing to the pain was of Lorien fleeing from the shadows, a fierce, wild expression in his eyes and both swords of legend gripped tightly in his hands.

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