Page 129 of Brimstone

The healer rubbed her neck, but she was still there beside the bed, peering down at Layne, holding her other hand over the female’s chest. “I don’t know. I can feel. . . .” She shook her head. “Something. It doesn’t

“What the hell doesthatmean?”

“Easy.” Maynir stepped forward, placing a hand on his mate’s shoulder. “She’s doing her best. The girl nearly snapped her neck just now.” His tone was testimony to how much he cared for Te Léna. In the face of how terrifying Fisher looked right now, most males would have quailed in his presence rather than dared to reprimand him. The air thrummed with Fisher’s mounting power. He was clearly drawing his magic to him, though the act was futile; there was nowhere for him to direct it. No enemy for him to strike down.

“Noooo, no, no, no, no. Please!” Layne suddenly dropped back down onto the bed, her head bouncing off the mattress. Her eyes snapped wide open. “Don’t! Please, don’t. Don’t . . . don’t . . .” A figure lurked in her pale green eyes—the dark outline of a looming figure. It seemed to grow, getting closer . . .

“Please . . .” Layne sobbed. Her voice had lost all power. It was a whisper now, desperate and resigned.

Fisher was pale as a ghost. It was freezing in the bedroom despite the fire that roared on the other side of the room. The ink on Fisher’s chest writhed, scattered to jagged lines. “Is she awake?” Fisher asked. “Who is she talking to?”

Te Léna shook her head. “No. Yes, I—She isn’there. I—I can feel her mind, as if she is awake, but her consciousness feels like it’s behind a wall or something.”

“Can you break through it?”

“No.” Te Léna’s eyes had adopted a strange, vacant look. “It’s so thick. So high. There’s no way to bring it down.”

“Try! Please! Just try!”

“Oh, gods, no. Stop!Plea—” Layne’s shriek cut off dead. Her back arched again, her heels hammering like pistons against the bed as she convulsed.

“Something’shurtingher!” Fisher stepped back from the bedside, dragging his hands through his hair, pulling on fists of it. His eyes found mine, and all was hopelessness and panicthere. Fisher could wield a sword. Could cut down his foes. He could form shadow gates and fly to his friends’ sides when they needed him. But there was no enemy to face here. No destination he could fathom.

He could do nothing to help, and that knowledge was killing him.

I was in no better position. My throat was burning so badly that it felt scorched. I reached out with the strange magic that roiled beneath my skin and found only the quicksilver, whispering softly, calm as a slow-flowing river.

Run. Run. Run. Run . . .

Dread crept along my bones like hoarfrost. I went to Layne, placing my hand on the top of her head. Her blond hair was tangled, wet with sweat. Her breathing faltered for a second, but then resumed its rapid pace, sawing in and out of her, her shaking growing even faster.

I felt what Te Léna had felt: a dark hand hovering over my friend, pressing her down into the wet soils of hell. And she wasnotalone in that place.

Layne’s eyelids flew open again, her pupils the size of pinpricks. Her tongue protruded awkwardly from her mouth, wet with saliva. Her teeth were stained red.The gate is open, a dread voice said, speaking from her mouth.It cannot be closed. The gate is open. The gate is open. The gate is—

I snatched back my hand like her skin had burned me.

The voice stopped.

Layne gave a terrible shudder, her eyes rolling back into her head, and then she fell motionless, the tension fleeing her body.

The air in the room was oppressively still, thick with a horror-laden silence.

No one moved.

No one said a word.

Fisher let go of his sister’s hand. His eyes were hollow as he padded stiffly, barefoot, from the room.

“Could it be connected to the rot?” Lorreth paced up and down, the thud of his boots pounding like a second pulse in my temples. We had all migrated to the dining room, one by one, not sure where else to go. Before the fireplace, Fisher’s hands were planted high over his head against the stone lintel of the hearth, the muscles in his back bunched into knots. He was lost in the flames.

“It’s possible,” Maynir said. His hand rested on top of Te Léna’s, his fingers intertwined with hers. “I’ve never read of anything like this happening in Yvelia before. But my research has revolved mostly around court politics. My own personal interest in varying magics has given me some insight into elemental magics, shadow magics, blood magics and the like . . . but this?” He puffed out his cheeks. “This infection stems from no vein of magic thatI’veheard of before. It is either very old or very new. Either way, we currently have no way of stopping it, and we have no clue how it might be affecting the realm. The presence of some magics have been known to cause seizures in the very young. It could be that, as this rot approached Cahlish, it affects Everlayne somehow?”

Conjecture. That’s all this was.

Maynir was grasping at straws, but he couldn’t be faulted for it. No one else had any idea what was going on.

Lorreth scratched at his stubble. “We need to find Ren—”