Page 49 of Boundless

By the time I felt air going down to my lungs again and felt my eyes blinking, I did not feel like me at all. I felt like a shell, empty, bruised and broken, bleeding, half—anything but me. All the pieces of me were sprawled on the ground wherever I’dlanded, and I had no idea how to get myself to move, to reach for them, to put myself back together for real, in the way that I was always supposed to be.

Eventually, I felt enough of my limbs that I could move. I blinked my eyes fast enough so that the darkness lifted just a bit to give way for a little light. A little shape over me, pale and small—but it was there.

I wasn’t all alone anymore. The moon was over me in the sky.

With my teeth gritted, I pushed myself to sit up, to look around, to try to figure out where I was, because this was most definitely not the train tunnel. I needed to know in which direction to run, where to hide—only to find that I was outside in an open field. Hills rolled on either side, and there were trees in the distance behind me, and other shapes in the dark that I couldn’t quite make out ahead.

Grass underneath me, soft against my palms. I was still breathing heavily, my lungs desperate for air, and I pushed myself to stand with all the energy I had left. The sky was dark and the moon gave me enough light to see, to run, to get to the Midnight Palaceright now.

I fell the first three times I made it up.

My legs were too weak to hold me until I tried a fourth time. It took everything just to straighten my shoulders, to look around, to focus on those trees and make out the color of their leaves.

Colorful, not just green.

I was in Verenthia.

A cross between a scream and a cry ripped out of me before I could help it—I made it.My God, I’d crossed through the ley line and I’d become one with it, had actually left Earth, and…

I looked down at my body, the right sleeve of my shirt completely torn, my skin raw red, andno shadowsanywhere on me.

The mark was not there anymore. The shadows were gone. I hardly felt my arm, but my skin was clean.

I wasnotbanished anymore. I really was in Verenthia!

Then I heard the howling.

There was no doubt in my mind that I had been alone.Allalone just now in whatever part of the realm I was in, but now I wasn’t.

There were at least two dozen creaturesrunningtoward me in the dark, some howling, their eyes made out of yellow light—and they werebig.They were huge.

They were werewolves.

My legs gave up on me again and I hit the ground on my knees this time. Only then did I realize that every bone in my body felt broken, and it was a miracle I’d managed to even stand up at all.

Within seconds they were there. The werewolves, all shifted, monstrous beasts with teeth sharp and as big as my pinkie fingers, had surrounded me on all sides.

Half of them raised their heads to the sky and howled again, and the sound cut me wide open. My eyes didn’t close so I saw how they approached me, slowly, heads down and tails low and fangs revealed.

So many werewolves.

They could rip me apart in seconds, devour me completely,eatme so that nobody would ever find a single proof that I’d ever existed—and even so, I wasn’t afraid. Even though I couldn’t stand on my own two feet, I wasn’t afraid.

Magic leaked out of my fingertips. Silvery white light that looked like smoke rose in the air, curling as it went.

“Maera.”

The name fell from my lips almost involuntarily, but Ifeltit all the way to my bones.

I said it again, this time louder, and the wolves howled harder. Came closer. Growled and showed me more of their teeth. Sniffed the air and moved away from my hands, closer to my back.

Taking in a deep breath was like swallowing lava, but I did it anyway. With every ounce of energy in my body, I screamed Maera’s name as loudly as I could one last time.

Then I collapsed face first onto the ground, surrounded by werewolves, and a different kind of darkness wrapped itself around me. I let go.

fifteen

My memories were blurred together.One moment they insisted that I was home, in bed, or downstairs in front of the TV with Dad and Fi, and the next, I was in front of those trees that held the Aetherway between them. In another, I was with Arez in the train tunnel, looking down at the hole beneath the railway, at the iridescent ribbons of light that flowed like a river both ways at the same time.