Page 40 of Invocation

“What do I do?” Novikke asked.

“Listen.”

She listened. And now that she was looking for it, she felt a soft pulsing coming from the tree. Like a heartbeat.

Curious, she reached toward the trunk. She heard Avan’s sharp intake of breath, and she stopped. Heat sank into her outstretched hand, and she could not tell whether it felt dangerous or comforting. Power poured from the tree. It skimmed over her skin, a tense vibration of magic or godliness or something else beyond the understanding of mortals.

And there was the presence again. A familiar sensation of something big watching her, very close and invisible to human eyes. The same feeling she’d had that day in the forest.

Something in her urged her to reach forward. The tree beckoned her.

Was that the voice she’d been listening for?

She reached forward. Her hand pressed against the bark.

A shock went through her. White-hot heat seared her fingers. She shouted in alarm before she realized there was no pain. There was only heat and energy and that heartbeat that she could now hear pounding in her ears, echoing through her head.

Black vapor, somehow dark and luminescent at once, flowed around her, crackling like lightning and sparking like fire. It pressed into her hand through the bark, sinking into her skin. She held her hand there, commanded by the wordless, inaudible voice that rang in her head, until she could stand it no more.

She tore her hand away, and the energy binding her to the tree broke off with a snap. She stumbled back and fell to the ground. The pounding heartbeat in her ears faded. The overwhelming heat subsided.

Her hand was streaked with black from her fingers to her elbow, like someone had smeared soot over her. Thin, glowing veins of gold, threads of light and darkness, bright with inner life, wove through her skin. It was in her.

She looked up at Avan, who stared at her in blank surprise. Novikke wasn’t sure whether this had been a punishment or a blessing. “What in the hells was that?”

Avan reached out and took Novikke’s hand. She held it for a moment, as if searching for something. She looked up at Novikke.

“I think she has given you a piece of herself,” she said, looking torn between awe and confusion and disapproval.

“A piece…?” A piece of Ravi. A piece of the heart. That was what she’d needed. It was a blessing after all.

Novikke pulled her hand away. “I have to go.”

Avan’s eyes went wide and sharp. “Where will you go?”

“To fix this,” she said, turning to leave. She glanced over her shoulder, smiling. “I’ll fix it. I promise.”

Avan gave her an unhappy, conflicted look. The look of someone whose life and home rested in the hands of a stranger and an enemy.

Novikke turned, still feeling the rush of Ravi’s magic flowing through her, and went to finish saving all of Kuda Varai.

???

Even moving quickly, it took Novikke half an hour to get back upstairs to the inn, but it felt like much longer.

Many of the slaves had gone already, but a few had remained to wreak havoc on the city. She passed a few fires.

She pushed open the door to the inn and went up the stairs to their room, stepping over bodies as she went. Her heart pounded as she came to the door. A dark part of her feared she would find him dead from the forest’s affliction or murdered by some vengeful human.

But she opened the door, and he was exactly where she’d left him, tucked safely into the bed.

She went to his side, standing over the bed to look down at him with apprehension. She glanced at the black marks on her hand. If this didn’t work, she’d have to leave him there.

She reached down and touched his hand.

There was a tiny spark of something when her skin touched his. His eyes snapped open. He looked at the ceiling, then over at her. Reading her concerned expression, he frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

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