Page 87 of Of Withering Dreams
But it was too late. She was a billowing eddy of soot-colored mist. In the next second, a sphere of twirling smoke condensed between her palms and then sprung toward my face. It clung to me, seeping into my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
I slapped wildly at my head, my aura throbbing, failing to dispense the fog invading my skull.
It was of no use.
The image of Melina thrusting her chest forward as her head and arms flung back burned into my senses. And then a turbulent rush of unbidden memories flashed behind my shuttered eyelids.
It was like when I’d watch the Evergryn woods at night during a lightning storm—intense bursts momentarily painting the dark, neglected trees in a ghastly white.
“Hestia, I fled far from my home. He told me never to tell a soul. To be someone else. I never wanted any of this for her. Thank you for everything you’ve done?—”
Her words drifted away in the recesses of swirling smoke.
“Damn the Fates. She doesn’t have to be the one?—”
The flash evaporated.
“I won’t be the Scion?—”
Darkness.
A disembodied voice trapped underground.
“There will be no ascension?—”
Fleeing through glossy black tunnels.
Melina outside my door.
The memory crumbled away into the haze.
Gavrel’s eyes.
Several different days, times, and moments spinning together. A chaotic fusion of verdant shades?—
A hesitant smile teasing his full lips.
His eyes.
His sturdy arms around me.
Moments vanished into the mist, smoke clogging every shadowed crevice as my ember worked to mend the damage.
“Seryn!” Gavrel roared, his tattoo blazing as he struggled against his embered restraints.
“I’ll only erase the important bits. She can handle it once more.”
Melina’s teeth glinted through the smog.
“Her memories are a risk I can’t abide.”
The embered smoke smoldered through my thoughts as if they were nothing but rotting grym needles being incinerated.
And then. Nothing.
Nothing but the lingering black ash of memories drifting away into the night.
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