Page 121 of Fangs
I was tucked into my bed, so I assumed Wolf must’ve untangled himself after I fell back asleep. I lay there momentarily, watching the early morning sunbeams play on the rafters. My heart felt… raw, but Ifeltit. It didn’t feel like I had an empty hole in my chest. The grief was still there, an ever-present ache, but this felt a tiny bit like… new growth.
I took a deep breath and sat up. My braids from Scar were falling out, and I knew my hair probably resembled a bird’s nest. I had to?—
The door below crashed open, making me jump. I heard Wolf say something in a sharp voice along with someone else, but then a body scrambled up the ladder at an inhuman speed and crashed into me, knocking me back onto my mattress. My brain struggled to register the chaos as I stared wide-eyed in horror at the person leaning over me.
It was Clarity. Tears spilled down her gaunt and ashen face, and her entire body was shaking.
“—tangled in shadows. They hunger. I see her path. They hunger for marrow and bone?—”
I could barely understand the frantic words that were spilling out of her mouth. Behind her, Wolf and Lee appeared, grabbing her and trying to pry her off me, but she let out a blood-curdling scream.
“It’s ok!” I shouted, waving them away. “It’s ok!”
They released Clarity but didn’t step back, looming over the two of us with matching dangerous expressions.
I managed to push her off enough to sit up. Clarity huddled beside me, babbling words that didn’t make sense and shaking like a leaf.
“Clarity?” When she didn’t respond, I gently took her face, holding it still until her wild eyes finally met mine. “Clare? Clare, can you hear me?”
Her body went so abruptly still that my heart stopped, sure she’d just had some sort of stroke, but then her hands gripped my wrists with an unnatural strength. She blinked, and I couldn’t contain my gasp as her brown eyes vanished, swallowed in black. There was no white, no iris, just like when my eyes had glowed golden, but Clarity’s eyes were full of a deep, empty darkness. It leaked from her eyes in thin black tendrils.
“She is the ember that ignites the pitch, and the loom is weaving the strands of the flux.”
It was still Clarity’s voice, but something about it made all the hair rise on the back of my neck. Before I could react, she blinked again, and her brown eyes focused on me, her brow drawing together.
“Bones?” she asked, likeshewas confused aboutme.
I gaped at her, speechless. She had her back to Wolf and Lee, so they hadn’t seen her eyes change. Had I imagined it?
“I did it again, didn’t I?” Clarity whispered before I could remember how to form words, and she burst into tears.
I reacted instinctively, pulling her into a hug and holding her. She was still trembling, and my mind was spinning through every possible disease and disorder I’d ever read about. I could feel all her bones protruding through her skin. Something was wrong,terriblywrong.
My fingers rested on the bare skin of her shoulder, and I tentatively let my healing power flow into her. It felt different from all the times I’d healed her before, but I couldn’t figure out why. Still, her body responded positively to my power. I couldn’t pinpoint any injury or infection, but I felt her strength returning. She let out a shuddering gasp, and I pulled back enough to look at her face. Her eyes were wide, shock written all over her face, and Iwatchedher color return, and her cheeks fill out again. It reminded me of when I healed Zeke’s little boy, Roe, from that terminal disease, but it wasn’t quite the same. For one, there was no sign of a diseaseat all.
The way her body absorbed my power was…
I frowned. Italmostfelt like what I would imagine healing an elderly person and making them young again would feel like, but I couldn’t reverse the body aging. I couldn’t make skin more elastic or stop muscles from shrinking, just like I couldn’t make amputated limbs grow back.
Wolf muttered a curse, and I remembered he was in the room. I stole a glance at him and Lee. They were watching us closely with similar expressions of astonishment.
“Did you heal me?” Clarity whispered, her eyes still huge.
“I…I don’t know,” I admitted, frowning. “Clarity, how long?—”
“I’m so sorry,” she interrupted, her eyes filling with tears again.
“Why are you sorry?”
“I shouldn’t be here,” she continued as though I hadn’t spoken, glancing nervously at Wolf and Lee. “Raven is going to kill me.”
Fury immediately filled my veins. “What?”
She met my gaze, looking alarmed, then shrank back at whatever expression was on my face.
“Ravenknewyou were sick?” I demanded, my voice too loud for the small space.
“It’s not their fault,” Clarity whispered.
