Page 156 of A Touch of Stars and Stones
I pick up her knife and step towards the Jarkoreth. “I don’t want to do this. I want you to ask me again, to be sure.” My eyes squint in the rain, but I look at the creature.
“Let me sleeeeppp…” Its hideous mouth speaks, and the air rolls with the voice I’ll never be able to forget.
I close my eyes and arc my arm, slicing the blade over the jugular it raises towards me, giving me an easy kill. It slumps to the ground, the massive hunch of its back sinking as the final breath of air leaves its body.
Sleep. Be at rest.I push the words out towards it, hoping the forest might hear them, too.
As the creature dies, I take a deep breath and let out a scream, ripping through the canopy that surrounds us, cathartic and draining. With the last note ringing in the air, the rain stops, and the death that was at our feet begins to seep back to where it came from.
Before I interfered.
“Perrin!” Raiden shouts. “Perrin!” Panic grips her voice.
Suddenly, people crowd the small area where we are. Not trainees. Custodians, other members of The Chamber.Were they watching us?
“What’s going on?” Micah asks, and I move towards him.
“The trial is halted,” Kamari answers, stepping towards me.
“Halted?” Calix asks. “Why?”
“You need more of a reason?” She looks around at what’s taken place before levelling her stare at me. “Take her away.”
“Me, what? Why? Calix, Micah!” I argue as three guards dressed in Warrior black approach, but they don’t grab me.
There is no calm inside of me. There is no still lake to draw from, only choppy waves and racing water. Everything inside of me wants to push back and raze them to the ground, but Ascella is still on the floor, surrounded by blood. The body of the Jarkoreth still lingers, rotting back into the earth, and it seems like whatever magic raised it, is dead now, too.
Maybe this is a nightmare, and I’m going to wake up soon. But my hand squeezes the hilt of the knife still in my hand.
Maybe I should be locked up.
I drop Crimson’s knife. This is all real.
“Micah, explain to Ten. Tell him what happened.”
I turn, ready to go with the officers, but a hard strike to the back of my head has me dazed.
Everything goes black.
When I come too, I’m not in the Variscite Forest. I’m in a dark chamber, and solid stone surrounds me on three sides. The last one is decorated with inch-thick bars running from the uneven ceiling to the grimy floor. The bed I’ve been asleep on is in better condition than mine back home, at least, and the only item not revealing where I am.
A cell.
My eyes adjust to the light, and my memory starts to flit back, along with a throbbing at the back of my head.
The trial.
The Jarkoreth.
Ascella.
But noises, footsteps—racing about, alarmed voices, all break the playback reel.
“Ever?” A light, sing-song voice that can only be Kyra sounds from the shadows beyond the bars.
“Kyra?”
“Oh, thank the Goddess, blessed may she ever be.”
