Page 58 of Fortress of Ambrose
No place has ever truly valued you.
A picture forms in my mind of a cloud of darkness engulfing the Chateau as several things happen at once.
A crash of glass.
A whip of wind.
The world is dark, fading into a memory.
Wails scratch my ears.
My frail arms hug my shaky legs. A familiar face breaks through the forest. My aunt, holding one of her wolves.
“I’m right here,” I shout to her, waving. She unclips the wolf’s leash, and it charges at me. Its paws hit me in the chest, and my back slams the ground. Snarling jaws snap at my face.
“React, nephew.”
I breathe harder and reach for the wolf’s face, clawing and kicking. Its teeth rip into my shoulder, and I moan in pain.
“It’s him or you, nephew. End him. Use that fear, make it anger.”
Heat burns through my body, numbing the pain. A strange blackness rushes through the air to my fingers, and the wolf howls in my grip. The rest is a fever dream. I blink, and there lies a pile of rotted bones. My aunt touches my temples, sparking a shoot of pain in my head. She signals for someone to join us. A Dragun I don’t recognize comes out of the shadows and brings a magic I’ve never seen near me.
My head throbs harder.
I blink, and my room materializes back into focus.
The exterior wall in my room is gone. The window that was once there is broken in decayed pieces on the floor. A gust of outside air urges me to my feet. I gape at my hands, which have turned purple. I stagger backward, feeling my chest for a heartbeat.Trust yourself more than you do, Quell had said. She was wrong.
“That was quite the show.” Yani, Willam, and a robed figure with stringy hair and icy gray eyes far too large for his long, bony face stand in the doorway. There is no sensation of magic, cold or warm, anywhere in my body anymore. I move away from the hole in the building. Yani watches me, mouth agape. Then she knits her brow as her gaze darts to the others.
“You didn’t tell me I’d be working on the Dragunhead,” the robed figure says under his breath.
A Healer.I can hardly breathe.
“Heart.” My own twinges. “And not really anymore.”
Willam scowls as the Healer spots the hole. “We’re going to need a better place to do this.”
“Is something wrong with Jordan?” Yani says.
“What is she doing here?” I ask. Quell and I told Knox that Yani should stay under Willam’s watch until we can find a secure place to hold her. I’m not yet convinced she should be wandering around Quell’s former home. But I didn’t imagine him parading her around the estate, letting her in on my business.
“I was just checking—”
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Leave us.” She scowls as she and Willam depart. The other man and I make space in the old Healer office.
He removes his hood, revealing a chiseled face with a sharp nose and beady eyes. Blond stubble covers the bottom half of his face. “I’m Zecky Meir, seventh of my blood.” He wears a heavy dark cloak, black trousers, and boots. There isn’t a memorable marker anywhere on him. Other than a speck of brown in one of his otherwise-pale gray eyes. He shrugs off his robe, hanging a thumb from his pocket as if he is here to hang out. His handshake is firm, and his posture is rigid despite his otherwise casual demeanor.
“I understand you have a toushana-related wound.” He unpacks a satchel with curious metal instruments.
“Yes, sort of.”
“How much toushana? And is it bound to you, or are you calling it to yourself? You’re a Dragun, so I assume the latter, but I have to ask. I’ve heard things.”
“It’s inside me, binding to my blood.”
Zecky stops polishing his instrument. “So the rumors about the Sphere’s magic being stolenaretrue. You and the Dragunhead plotted—”
