Page 18

“I pray to a different god.”

“Do I have your word?” the man says again firing each word faster than a bullet.

Bonar clenches his jaws. “By Livith’s will, I swear.”

The bandit turns to me, and I push away. A sob breaks out when a shard of glass digs into my foot, but I fight for each inch of distance I put between us. Yet it is easy for the masked man to follow the dark stain on the carpet. “Ain’t today your lucky day?”

“Livith take you,” I spit through clenched teeth.

The man pulls away and lifts his boot. It comes down on my arm with an explosion of stars in my mind, and the world swirls around me.

Once.

Twice.

And I plunge into the eternal darkness.

9

The darkness is so sweet.

It laps on my skin. Curls through my hair. Swirls through my mind. Claims a part of me at a time.

Flashes of clarity break through the shadows.

It’s only heat, a racket of voices, and pain.

Grueling.

Strenuous.

Endless.

The darkness comes again. It clutches me in its grip no matter how hard the world sways around me, and clings to my skin, no matter how much sand batters me awake.

“Nel.”

I know that voice. I’ve heard it dip with curiosity and rise in amusement, but not yet tremble with heart-wrenching worry.

The voice calls my name again, but it comes from the same place where a cacophony of cries and grinding gears awaits my return. Where the sun blisters my skin. Where agony and strain twist into a raw wound.

“Don’t die.” The same voice utters.

I want to comfort its owner. To tell him everything will be fine. Nothing is going to happen to me. But the darkness is so sweet and its call irresistible.

10

Everything burns.

That’s absurd, I said to myself as it started like a thorn wedged under a nail.

Nothing should reach me in the darkness. Nothing could hurt me. But the prickle grew in power, charring my skin, melting it on my bones, until it was only heat and flames devouring the last bits of my consciousness.

I wanted nothing other than for the darkness to hold me forever and never let go. Now I desire for nothing else but for it to release me from its scorching strokes.

I can barely take a breath. Heat claws on my lips, dries my nostrils, cracks my skin.

“Sands.” A voice filled with gravel breaks through the haze, and for a moment the fire recedes. “What happened out there?”