Page 144 of Of Blood and Banes
“Give that to me,” Marge barks, snatching the journal from my hands. She hurriedly flips through the pages, her chest rising and falling quicker by the second. “Sethan, this entire journal is written in the old language?—”
“We don’t have time.” His voice has a deadly frigid tone as he stares into the dark entrance through to the hatching grounds beyond, the ground still quaking. “Something is coming.”
Marge is hit with a sudden thought, evident by her rounding eyes as she looks at me and tucks the journal into her side. “Give me your hand.”
I offer it to her, still smeared with blood, the crimson staining the wrinkles of my skin.
She grabs my wrist and holds it out over the skeleton. “Do you sense anything?”
“No,” I admit in a small voice, sweat trickling down the back of my neck.
“Close your eyes. Focus, just like you’re pulling,” she urges. “Hurry!”
Cole stalks up the stairs to the arched entryway of the hatching grounds, his blade raised and ready. Archie, Melaina, and Sethan follow behind him.
“Close your eyes, Katerina!” Marge barks.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and she removes her grip from my wrist, allowing my hand to hover. I fight to keep it raised as the ground beneath me continues to tremble, the force of which increases by each breath.
“We’ve got company!” Sethan shouts somewhere in the room.
But before I can open my eyes, a sparkle of energy whispers to me, far below and beneath the surface. I lean forward, partly nervous I might fall in if I’m not careful.
“Now, Katerina! Now! Follow your intuition!” Marge’s voice wavers as if on a receding tide.
The hums grow louder, the black behind my eyelids transforming into a melding of blues until it shifts into a sparkling white. I reach toward it until my fingertips press against cold, brittle bone. I pull. And my consciousness is swept away, all my logic and thoughts vanishing in a single breath.
CHAPTER 45
HER
I’m in The White.
It’s hard to mistake, with the blinding light surrounding me and lack of sensation. A black figure emerges from the mist. Her long, lavender-colored dress drags through the fog, sending it scurrying into various directions. But rather than having a rip as it did back in the coffin, the fabric is one. Free of stains.
Queen Elara.
The air about her is palpably regal. She holds out an open hand to me, a faint white circle around her ring finger where there should be one.
I flick my eyes back and forth between her piercing blue eyes and hand.
Marge warned me not to touch anyone in The White. But she also prompted me to follow my intuition.
I take a step forward and reach out, and as soon as my hand touches hers, her eyes flash into an endless expanse of white before my vision is sucked into a slate of black.
I race to the bathroom, my head swimming at a nauseating speed. Barely passing the gold-trimmed door frame into the room, I stumble, my knees colliding with the polished marble floors. My stomach tightens into a painful coil, a live fire burning in my throat until I heave vomit onto the ground, unable to quite make it to the sink.
My arms shake beneath me as I push myself up off the floor, then double back over at the putrid stench of my bile. I manage to drag myself to the sink and splash cold water over my face as I look up into the mirror.
My skin is as white as porcelain, my blue eyes dull and sunken into my skull, leaving behind deep bruised grooves above my high cheekbones. Every part of me is withering away, bit by bit. I’m starting to not look like myself…and the only thing that scares me more is other people noticing.
“Queen Elara?” Emerose, my lead maid, calls out from the bedroom.
I quickly brush my sweat-drenched blonde hair back from my face and suck in a steadying breath before turning away from the sink.
Emerose knocks at the door moments before she sweeps in, her dark eyes widening in shock and bouncing between the vomit and me. She rushes over, her small hands bracing me. “Oh, my Queen! Are you alright? You look?—”
“I’m fine,” I say with a small smile.
