Page 26 of Bite Sized Bride
Vexia smiles, a thin, cruel curve of her lips. “The beast is tired,” she says, her voice dripping with contempt. She begins a new chant, a low, guttural string of syllables that makes the air feel thick and heavy. A curse of weakness.
I try to push myself up, but my limbs feel like they are made of lead. The red storm is fading, replaced by a grey fog of exhaustion.
Then, a small, dark shape darts past me. Mikana. She is running, not away, buttowardthe sorcerer, the tiny, stolen letter opener held before her like a real sword.
It is the bravest, most foolish thing I have ever seen.
Vexia laughs, a sound of pure, condescending amusement. She raises a hand, a ball of black energy forming in her palm.
“No,” I groan, forcing my protesting muscles to move.
But Mikana is faster than I am. She doesn’t try to stab the sorcerer. She throws herself at Vexia’s legs, a desperate, clumsy tackle. It is just enough to spoil her aim. The ball of black energy flies wide, slamming into the cliff face and exploding in a shower of rock and dust.
The distraction is all I need. I surge to my feet, the grey fog burned away by a final, desperate burst of adrenaline. I am on Vexia before she can cast another spell. My hand closes around her slender throat.
Her eyes go wide with shock, then with a flicker of what might be fear. I lift her from the ground, her feet kicking uselessly. I could crush her windpipe with a thought. I could end the architect of my misery right here, right now. The Urog inside me screams for it.
But I look past her, at Mikana, who is pushing herself up from the ground, her face pale but her eyes blazing with a fierce, protective light. She’s oh so very weak, with wounds big and small. She needs me.
And I know I cannot. Not in front of her.
With a final roar of frustration, I hurl the sorcerer away from us, into the dense forest. I hear her crash through the undergrowth, followed by a string of curses that are anything but elegant. She is alive, but she is gone. For now.
I turn and scoop Mikana into my arms, my movements urgent. We have to go.
We find shelter hours later, a deep, hidden fissure that smells of wet stone and deep earth. I collapse inside, the last of my strength gone. The world swims, the grey fog returning.
I fall into a restless, pain-filled sleep. And I dream.
It is not a memory. It is a storm. I am floating in a sea of raw, untamed power, a whirlwind of color and sound. The energy of a thousand lightning strikes flows through me, tearing me apart and rebuilding me, over and over. It is agony. It is ecstasy. It is the song of creation itself.
And through the chaos, a word. A name. A place. It echoes in the heart of the storm, a single point of clarity in the madness. A place of unmaking. A place of hope.
Wildspont.
I wake with a jolt, the word a fire on my tongue. My wounds burn, my body aches, but my mind is clear, focused with a new and desperate purpose.
Mikana is beside me, asleep, her hand resting on my arm where she must have been tending my wounds. She is the reason. She is the hope.
I shake her shoulder, my movements rougher than I intend. Her eyes fly open, wide with alarm.
I have to make her understand. I point to the fused collar on my neck, the symbol of my curse. I point to my own chest, to the ghost of the orc trapped inside. Then I look her in the eyes, pouring all of my desperation, all of my hope, into a single, guttural word.
“Wildspont.”
15
MIKANA
“Wildspont.”
The word hangs in the air of the fissure, a rough, guttural sound full of a desperate, terrifying hope. Kael says it as he points to the fused iron collar on his neck, then to his own massive chest. He is giving me a destination. A reason. A cure.
I stare at him, at the raw plea in his amber eyes. A Wildspont. I remember the term from one of Malakor’s oldest texts. A place of pure, untamed magic. A natural phenomenon where the veil between realms is thin, causing reality to warp and twist. They are considered legends by most, places of extreme danger, as likely to unmake a person as they are to grant them power.
And he believes one can cure him.
The hope is a fragile, beautiful, and utterly insane thing. We are in the middle of a hostile forest, wounded, with the most powerful dark elf in Lliandor hunting us, and our goal is to find a mythical place that may not even exist.
