Page 41

I’d never seen another person control magic that appeared even the least bitlike mine.

So I pulled away and ran faster into the black vortex, pressing onward even as the shadows engulfed me and it felt as if they were freezing my skin into brittle sheets, threatening to shatter it right off my bones.

Each step became heavy, excruciating, sending daggers of pain shooting up my legs.

But the deeper I went, the more often I glimpsed her.

She was real.

I wasn’t imagining her.

So I kept moving.

As I finally reached her, everything—my plans, my courage, my hope—left me. I blacked out one instant, and slammed unceremoniously into the woman in the next, sending us both sprawling to the ground. We tumbled through a storm of shadows and dust. The cold of her magic continued to pulse around me. As we untangled from one another and stood up, she bounced back and lifted her staff, using it to direct that cold with more precision; iciness wrapped around my limbs. My chest.

My throat.

I couldn’t breathe, Icouldn’t fucking breathe—

She lifted her free hand and struck it toward me, pulling threads of darkness from the air behind her with the motion. She continued to move her staff as well, and the shadowy strings began to weave together in front of her.

I countered reflexively, projecting myself into the threads, grabbing what I could of them and pulling—hard. I was determined to break them before they could close her off again. I only managed to sever a few, but it was enough to catch her attention; her eyes widened as she realized what I was doing.

She went perfectly still. The shadows untangled and fell away, taking most of the cold with it, leaving the air between us hazy but relatively clear.

We stared at one another, wearing identical looks of shock.

As her magic dissipated further, I studied her closer. She was tall and muscular, her potential strength obvious even beneath the relatively loose, dark clothing she wore. Her eyes were an interesting shade of deep amethyst, and they were piercing and sharp, especially compared to the rest of her otherwise soft face. Her hair was like liquid night—waves of inky black thatoccasionally glistened with streaks of silver, making me think of shooting stars.

Thosestars, I soon realized, were actually part of a delicate band fastened around her head; thin silver chains draped down from it, peeking out from under the long, obsidian strands and shimmering with even the faintest bit of light. Other, equally delicate chains crisscrossed her neck and arms in a way that seemed purposeful and precise, so that—at a glance—it all appeared to be ink permanently tattooed and shining brightly upon her brown skin.

The staff she carried remained half-raised, but as perfectly motionless as the rest of her. I kept waiting for her to move. To disappear into more shadows.

But no, she was solid.

Another being who was clearly solid, clearly real, clearlyalivein this dead realm.

Finally, she moved. She slammed her staff into the ground and braced herself against it, and then she said something in a language I didn’t understand. Paused. Tried again, her words growing more insistent. More furious.

I glanced over my shoulder at Aleksander. He looked equally stunned and confused. He started to take a step toward us—

The woman stopped him with a glare and a biting string of words that were still incomprehensible to me, yet clearly a warning.

She shifted her glare back to my face, appraising me for a long, uncomfortable moment.

And then she spoke again, this time in the common tongue of my empire, her words coming clearly but slowly: “Your magic. Possession. Necromancy. Yes?”

My heart leapt into my lungs, crowding away any chance of a normal breath.Necromancy.I’d heard that term used so infrequently in my life that it felt almost as if she was stillspeaking to me in a foreign language. As if I must have misheard her, somehow.

But I managed to nod.

“You are one of the rogue hunters, then?” she asked. “After a reward, I presume?”

I swallowed hard, hesitating, trying to decide on a safe answer. “I’m hunting…something. But I’m not after a reward. Not one of gold or anything, I mean.”

She continued to appraise me. “You have apprehended the Light Beast, though?” Her eyes flicked toward Aleksander.

“Not exactly,” I said.