Page 41 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
But then the instinct for survival overruled her desire for the truth, and the girl kept running.
Chapter Seventeen
Dark dreams breakthrough my midnight haze.
A flash of gray stone.
My body being carried in strong arms.
The flicker of candlelight.
Jade-green eyes hovering over mine.
Hands over my heart.
Blackness swoops in again.
And then… air pouring into my lungs as I suck in a breath. Daemon is standing over me. We’re in the healing ward of the castle. One of his hands rests just over my collarbone. The light is dim, but I can see a dark smoke-like substance coming out of my chest and going into Daemon. Like he’s…like he’s drawing itintohimself.
My gaze hooks on his. “Stay with me, little blacksmith,” he says, his voice trembling slightly, as if he’s in pain.
I try to respond, but my lips don’t feel as if they belong to me. My mouth opens slightly and then closes again.
Daemon takes his free hand and wraps his fingers around mine. “Don’t try to talk.”
Pain lances abruptly through my body, pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt before in my life. My back arches up off the bed, my bones feeling as if lightning is coursing through them. It feels like fire and poison in my veins, a burning sensation sweeping through my limbs, my lungs, and my eyes. I cry out, my head rocking back.
“I need you to fight, Embyr,” Daemon says, his voice cutting through my agony. “I know you’re a fighter. And right now, you need to fight with everything you’ve got.”
My body shudders as the pain continues to jolt through me, and I feel a jerk from his hand as if he can somehow feel it. But he doesn’t move from my side, and he doesn’t let go of my hand. His other hand stays over my heart, his fingertips burning against my skin like brands.
The room is getting darker, the candle on the bedside table flickering as if someone is trying to blow it out. Darkness is sweeping in again, pressing in around me. And I realize how foolish it was to live all those years thinking that magic didn’t exist. Because magic is very real, and it’s trying to destroy me right now. Magic is the monster in the darkness, the beast clawing at the door. Magic is my death, looming over me.
A growl climbs out of Daemon’s throat and his hand tightens on mine, squeezing me so hard it feels like my bones might break. His body is rigid, and he’s shaking, too, as the shadows swirl around us, and all the light in the room other than the lone candle is devoured by them. The candle, and Daemon’s eyes, two points of color in the midnight that surrounds us. I focus on that color, the pale green of the ocean. I hold onto them as everything else falls away, and even the candle flutters and goes out.
“Fight, Embyr,fight…”
I hold onto them for another moment, and then another, and then another…
And then I can’t hold on anymore, and the darkness claims me.
Chapter Eighteen
Somehow, the candleis lit again.
It’s the first thing I notice as my eyes open. The room is still dim, but I can see the candle on my bedside table, and I can see moonlight streaming in the high windows on the far end of the healing ward.
I’malive.
How am I alive?
I struggle to shift upright, shimmying against the pillows behind me. Everything hurts. It feels as if my bones and muscles have been shattered and shredded and put back together again. Even my skin feels tender, like a bad sunburn. It looks grayish and dull, I can tell even without much light. The room spins as I try to move into a sitting position.
Daemon was here. Flashes of images move through my head. Daemon pulling shadows out of me. Daemon’s eyes filled with pain. He’d saved me.
Unless the whole thing had been a fever dream. A hallucination from the magic.
I finally manage to get into an upright position, my back against the pillows. It takes a moment for the room to still, and my vision to focus. I turn and look to the left of me.
