Page 56 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

Corvin convulses on the ground with his eyes bulging and hands clawing at his face, smearing blood across his paling skin. Marge brushes a hand over his forehead, while Archie tries to still Corvin’s hands.

“Katerina!” Marge snaps. “Earth dragons can be poisonous. He might only have minutes left!”

I run over to them and drop next to Marge as Corvin begins to gasp for a solid breath. Sethan ushers people back to give us space, while muttering commands to the other dragon riders.

“No—wait, no!” Archie whips out a dagger, slices off part of his shirt, and holds it to Corvin’s bleeding nose. “There has to be something we can do! Can we…can we tie a-a…tourniquet? Or something!” He whips around to look at the group, eyes wide with desperation. “Please!”

Marge drags her gaze to me. “There’s nothing anyone else can do for him but you. The poison’s magical composition is similar to dragonfire, just in a different form. Just like how you set those ripples free, pull it. Control it.”

I rip off my gloves finger by finger as I look up at Daeja. Cole’s at her side and gives me a small nod as he works to remove several of the poisonous barbs from her scales and wings.

Corvin gurgles beneath Archie, his legs twitching as he sporadically thrashes.

Archie watches me with glassy eyes as I stretch a hand out to Corvin’s cheek.

I rest my palm against his face, wet with blood.

My eyes lower to the rapid rise and fall of his chest. We don’t have much time—and Gods…

if I fail. I feel every stare burning into my skin.

The inevitable humming energy sings around me, as if from a hidden world just beneath the surface.

This is where it matters. Where I matter.

“You’ve never let me down,” Marge murmurs gently.

Summoning all my strength, I shut my eyes and focus on Corvin’s body. I picture his muscles. His bones. I fixate on the veins in his body and sink my concentration into the rivers of blood, following each curve and flow as I pinpoint the black, sparkling fluid pulsing throughout him.

As if I were sucking it out with my breath, I draw it closer to me through my fingers with each inhale.

Calling it to me. The liquid trembles, fighting against me.

But slip by slip, it edges back toward the center of the wound in his nose, until I feel it collect in my palm.

My body shakes as I fight to keep it from escaping.

My breath comes out in ragged pants. The poison burns and freezes my skin all at once as it sits in my palm.

With a strained roar, I flash open my eyes and fire the handful of poison away from Corvin.

The liquid flies from my hand as if it were a spear, splattering against a tree and running down its mangled bark in dark rivers.

Corvin’s eyes fall closed, and his body stills to a peaceful calm. The tension in his expression melts away.

“Move!” Sethan barks and pushes Archie out of the way.

“Did it work?” Archie’s voice twirls into something almost distant and incomprehensible.

“Katerina?” Marge’s voice echoes as if some underwater call.

The colors of the forest around me whirl, and my breathing slows. An icy burn spiders up from my hand, through my arm, to my chest.

“Kat?” Archie turns his bewildered gaze to me, his face beginning to spin. He lurches forward to catch me, but I can’t remain conscious long enough to see if he does.

My sense of gravity slips away, like I’m falling. My skull crunches against something hard.

Even in the depths of whatever existence I’m in, she’s there. A sparkling onyx orb promising peace and home.

“Where are you?” she calls out to me, the orb constricting and expanding with each inflection.

“Here,” I groan, but I’m too far for my voice to carry. I reach for her, only to find my nerves tingling as if I slept on them for too long and just woke. But my hand is outstretched before me, and I wiggle my fingers. Something about the sensation tells me this isn’t The White. I’m not dead.

Or at least not yet.

“Katerina?” Daeja calls again, her voice tipping into fear.

“I’m still here,” I croak.

An invisible breeze brushes against my skin. And a foreign, sultry voice whispers in my head. “Let me help you …”

I flinch. Raking my gaze around the blank wall of white around me to pinpoint the call, I stop at a green orb.

“Here. Yes. Come to me.” It echoes out across the vast nothingness.

When I turn back to the black orb where I felt Daeja, she’s gone.

“How do I know I can trust you?” My voice echoes loudly around me.

“You either trust me or die. Which shall it be?”

I glance down at my hands, and while I still have the dark stain around my middle finger where the bond marking is, the Blood Ring is gone from my left hand.

“The clock is ticking. And if you die, so does the Moon One.”

As I open my mouth to respond, something crawls over my face. A solid wall of heat blasts me off my feet. My mouth is ripped open by the unseen.

The voice distorts into something sinister and menacing, “Breathe …”

My eyes snap open, and I gasp for breath like a fish out of water. My vision floods with blinding greens and yellows. I claw at my mouth, pulling off roots hooked into my teeth and tossing them off me with a cry.

A pair of wide, gold-glittering eyes regard me from above.

Long strings of ivy cascade from the antler-like horns on the green dragon’s head.

It retreats from me. The sunlight behind it outlines the overgrown moss strung like curtains from its wings.

Every square inch of the dragon’s scales is covered in growth, as if it surfaced from the earth itself.

Daeja crowds into my vision next to the green dragon lurching over me. “You’re here.” She nuzzles her scaly nose under my chin, her breath heating my neck.

“ What…happened?”

“You passed out. When you drew the poison from Corvin’s body, you absorbed a lot of it through your skin. So, it kind of took you…”

“To the brink of death,” the foreign voice rings in my head.

So it wasn’t because the magic overwhelmed me. When I try to curl up off my back, I find a numbness blocking my limbs. I’m unable to do anything but move my head and blink.

“Careful,” the earth dragon warns, somehow sensing my struggles. “Let the breath chase out the poison.”

“The breath?” I ask.

“Dragon’s breath,” Daeja answers. “He was gracious enough to come to our aid and heal you.”

I lock gazes with the green dragon with vines curling around its body. “You…you were in there, weren’t you?”

It blinks long and slow at me. “Yes. I heard the Moon One’s roar.

The forest has been quiet for over a hundred years, so I knew there was trouble.

Though, I never expected to find you.” As it turns its head slowly to Daeja, I hear the creaking of wood.

“Take your humans and fire dragons and leave. This forest does not welcome outsiders. And others may not be as forgiving as I am.”

Daeja looks up to the earth dragon, dipping her head in appreciation. “Thank you for sharing your breath.”

The earth dragon settles me with one long look, then it turns and leaves, disappearing and becoming one with the forest.