Page 142 of Riftborne
Fear shot through me as my consciousness finally came back in full swing.
I had to do something.
I had to escape.
My muscles went rigid as I slowly coaxed the tendrils from my spine. They began weaving their way up, spilling out over my skull, and I gently pushed them out, searching for a mind to command.
I felt the body behind me shift, and my head snapped around toface him. But all I could make out in the darkness were two glowing, golden eyes.
My heart lurched.
I recognized them.
“Rethlyn, she’s awake! Put her back under! Now!” the man shouted.
And in an instant, my vision faded to black once more.
CHAPTER 52
Utter darkness creptin around me, invading my mind like a storm in the night. My body was weightless, floating in the void, untethered to reality.
Thick fog loomed over every thought as I drifted through the nothingness. Everything felt numb, save for the tiny prickles dotting my spine. Familiarity broke through the trance as I recognized the peculiar feeling.
The tendrils that I’d come to know danced, delicately lacing themselves around my mind, pulsing with warmth—an embrace that now brought comfort.
They grew and grew and grew, overwhelming my world, freeing themselves from the shell of my skin and extending into the darkness, flickering like candles in the night.
They reached and reached and reached, searching for something. For anything.
What were we looking for again?
My thoughts still felt drenched, heavy, swirling.
In the distance, a shimmering orb came into view, and my tendrils flittered towards it like a moth to a flame.
Then I remembered.
We were looking for a mind.
The ball of light in the distance was glittered with translucent fibers, shifting between pastel shades of pink, blue and violet. Then colors that didn’t exist, colors I had only ever seen within my own mind… within my own web.
As my tendrils approached the entity, a sense of something not so foreign began to trickle into my thoughts.
Like I had been here before. Seen this before. Been this before.
Nothing made sense, yet everything felt exactly as it should.
My webbing surrounded the orb, gently snaking… searching… learning… adapting.
Violent light surged through me as contact was made.
Fiandrial.
The name echoed through the expanse, and in my head, and through my limbs.
Fiandrial? That name…
We’ve been waiting for you to find us.
