Page 84 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

Every glassback freezes for one heartbeat ... Then they attack.

The creature above me drops, landing on the haunches of my horse.

The animal bucks in terror, throwing me from the saddle.

I hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the wind from my lungs.

Rolling onto my back, gasping, I’m just in time to see my horse bolt down the path with the glassback clinging to it.

The pass dissolves into a nightmare. Fighters draw weapons, but they’re outnumbered. A glassback rears up before me, its underside pulsing with sickly red light. Those tiny mouths open, giving me a direct view inside.

I try to scream but only manage a strangled gasp. The creature’s antennae reach toward me, quivering with what seems like anticipation. Something wet begins to seep from glands near its head—a clear fluid that hisses where it drips onto stone.

Silver light erupts from my fingers. The glassback pauses, its antennae waving frantically, sensing the change in me. In that moment of hesitation, shadows lance through its body.

Sacha , striking from somewhere behind me.

The creature’s exoskeleton cracks with a sound like breaking ice. Instead of blood, a luminescent red fluid leaks from the wounds, steaming in the cold air. The stench hits me —chemical and rotten, like decaying plants mixed with copper—and I gag.

“Stay down.” Sacha’s voice is tight with control. His shadows flow around me, forming a barrier as more glassbacks skitter down the walls.

I try to push myself up, but my arms are shaking too badly to support my weight. My breath comes in short, painful gasps. Energy pulses wildly beneath my skin, responding to my panic rather than any conscious direction.

A glassback lunges for Sacha. I throw out my hand automatically, and power surges through me, hot and electric in a chaotic burst that misses the creature entirely and strikes the pass wall instead. Rocks crack and tumble down, nearly crushing one of our fighters.

“Control it!” Sacha spins to dispatch the attacking glassback.

But control is beyond me. Every nerve ending feels raw, exposed. The silver light burns hotter with each thundering heartbeat. Something is building inside me, something I can’t contain.

A glassback leaps toward me, sailing through the air on gossamer threads that trail from its body. Its mouths are already opening in anticipation. Sacha is too far away. The other fighters are engaged in their own desperate battles. No one can reach me in time.

And then my terror transforms, becomes something else.

Something with teeth and claws and purpose.

The mist stalker erupts from nowhere, materializing between me and the glassback in a swirl of silver-tinged vapor that solidifies into muscle and bone and fury.

Its form vibrates with barely concealed rage.

My rage, my fear, given physical form. Its jaws snap closed on the glassback’s midsection with bone-crushing force.

The connection slams into me, and then I’m not just seeing the mist stalker, I am the mist stalker. I’m experiencing everything through its senses while still trapped in my own trembling body.

The glassback’s exoskeleton splinters between powerful jaws, jagged pieces piercing the soft tissue of our mouth, sending lances of pain shooting through us both.

The creature’s ichor floods our throat, tasting of battery acid and rotting fruit and something so utterly alien I have no reference for it. It burns wherever it touches.

I gag, bile rising in my throat as the doubled sensations overwhelm me. My human body rejects what my familiar experiences, while the mist stalker embraces the pain as the necessary cost of survival.

The glassback thrashes, its limbs scrabbling against the mist stalker’s flanks, leaving shallow cuts that I feel as if they’re being carved into my own flesh.

My familiar doesn’t seem to notice. It tightens its grip, shaking the creature violently until bones snap.

The glassback’s body ruptures, spraying ichor in an arc that spatters across fighters and stone alike.

Where the fluid touches skin, it raises angry welts. A fighter cries out in pain, the sound immediately stifled as he remembers the need for silence.

Too late. The damage is done.

The clicking intensifies, echoing from all directions. The sound reverberates through the pass like a death knell. Above us, the silver threads begin to vibrate, transmitting our location to every glassback in the vicinity.

“The threads!” Sacha shouts, abandoning stealth now that we’ve been discovered. “They’re signaling the colony. Run!”

I follow his gaze to the web network stretched above us, now humming with activity.

The sight sends another surge of terror through me.

My body convulses as light pours out in uncontrolled waves.

The mist stalker howls, the sound echoing my internal scream.

It tears through another glassback, its savagery matching my fear.

The sky rumbles as clouds gather overhead. Lightning crackles between my fingers. I can’t stop it, can’t even slow it. My power feeds on my fear, growing stronger as my control fractures.

Sacha drops to his knees beside me, gripping my shoulders hard enough to bruise. His face, spattered with glowing ichor, fills my vision.

“Ellie! Focus !”

I try to speak, but only a whimper escapes.

The mist stalker continues its frenzy, ripping through another glassback while I experience every sensation as if it’s happening to me.

The resistance of alien flesh parting under our claws, the burning taste of toxic ichor, the mindless need to destroy what threatens us.

“The threads.” Sacha’s voice softens, an anchor in the chaos threatening to sweep me away. His shadows extend, dark tendrils that reach out to intertwine with my wild energy. “Direct it at the threads, not everywhere. Focus, Mel’shira.”

His shadows create a channel for my power, a conduit that somehow knows how to focus the wildness inside me where it needs to go. It’s intimate in a way I don’t have words for, his energy moving through mine, directing without controlling.

My hand rises, shaking violently, but with more purpose now. The light responds, streaming toward my fingertips where it gathers, condenses, and becomes almost solid. No longer wild energy, but focused intent.

When it releases, it tears through me. A concentrated beam of energy strikes the thread network above us.

The strands don’t simply break, they ignite like fuses soaked in oil, burning with cold fire that races along the web.

Where thread meets thread, small explosions burst like silent fireworks against the night sky, beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

For one breathless moment, the entire pass is lit up in silver-white brilliance, revealing the true extent of the glassback colony.

Hundreds of their bodies cling to the walls, convulsing whenever the light hits them, refracting the beams in prismatic bursts.

Their clicking changes to high-pitched whines that drill into my skull.

They retreat in waves, scrabbling up the cliff faces, leaving glowing trails in their wake.

I collapse forward, emptying the contents of my stomach onto the rocky ground.

My body rejects the sensations flooding through it—the phantom taste of toxic fluid, the remembered feeling of exoskeleton shattering between jaws that aren’t mine.

My skin feels flayed, hypersensitive to every breeze and touch.

The mist stalker stands over a twitching glassback carcass, its fur matted with luminous red fluid that continues to eat into its hide. It doesn’t whimper or show pain, but I feel the burning as if acid is being poured over my own body.

“They navigate by vibrations through their thread network.” Mira’s voice comes from very far away. "You’ve blinded them, for now."

I remain on my hands and knees, unable to rise. The silver light continues to pulse in erratic waves that match my ragged breathing. The mist stalker limps to my side, pressing against me despite the ichor burning us both.

“I couldn’t—" My voice breaks, barely audible. "I didn’t know how to?—”

Sacha kneels beside me. Fingers touch my chin, tilting my head up until I have no choice but to meet his gaze. His eyes hold mine, intense and unblinking.

“Your familiar is too tightly bound to your emotional state. It acted on your fear, not your intent.”

I nod weakly, another wave of nausea washing through me. “I couldn’t separate ... what it felt ... from what I felt. It was like drowning in someone else’s pain.”

“That connection can be a strength, but only if you learn to control it instead of letting it control you.” His thumb brushes over my lips, then he reaches down for my hands. “Can you stand?”

“I … I don’t know.” His grip tightens, warm and solid, as he pulls me upright.

My legs buckle immediately, refusing to support my weight. Sacha catches me before I fall, one arm sliding around my waist to hold me against him. For a moment, we’re pressed together, my face buried against his neck, breathing in his scent beneath the sour tang of glassblack poison.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper against his skin. “I nearly got everyone killed.”

His other hand comes up to cradle the back of my head. “You saved us. That network would have brought the entire colony down on us.”

“But I lost control.”

“You found it when it mattered.” He lowers his head until his lips brush against my ear. “You channeled the power exactly where it needed to go.”

The warmth of his praise spreads through me, but it’s followed immediately by shame.

“Only because you helped me. Without you, I?—”

“We work well together, Mel’shira.” There’s something in his tone that makes me pull back to look at him. His expression is as unreadable as ever, but there’s heat in his eyes that has nothing to do with the battle we just survived.

His head dips, and his lips brush against mine, then his hand drops away.

"We need to move. Before they regroup and return.”

Two fighters retrieve my horse, which had fortunately not run far, but Sacha leads me to his mount instead.

His hands span my waist as he lifts me into the saddle, the contact sending a shiver through me.

Then he swings up behind me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his chest against my back.

My body feels hollow, scraped raw from the inside. I can’t stop shaking, but now I’m not sure if it’s from the aftermath of terror or from Sacha’s proximity. His arm settles around my waist, holding me steady, and I fight the urge to lean fully back against him.

The mist stalker pads alongside, refusing to dissolve back into light despite my silent pleas. Each time I look at it, I remember the sensations of teeth tearing through alien flesh, and my stomach threatens to rebel again.

I hold myself tense, eyes darting around constantly, while I try to keep some distance between us, but every time the horse steps over uneven ground, I’m pressed more firmly against him. His arm tightens around me, pulling me closer.

“Relax. I’ve got you.”

The simple words break something inside me, and I sag back against his chest, allowing myself to accept the comfort he’s offering. We ride in silence until we finally emerge from Silverthread Pass. The night air feels blessedly clean compared to the charnel house we’ve left behind.

"Your power is different from mine," he says softly. "It comes from a place of instinct rather than intention."

“Is that bad?”

He laughs softly, the sound vibrating through me. “Just different. It could explain why it’s been so difficult for you to control it.”

His raven soars overhead, drawing his attention away. He processes whatever information it brings with a slight nod, but his arm never loosens its hold on me.

"We’re close now. Less than an hour to Thornspire Keep."

I look down at my hands, still shaking, skin marked with faint silver lines that pulse with my heartbeat. Evidence of what lives inside me, what I’ve become. Whatever I was back in Chicago, that woman is gone now. This power flowing through my veins is mine. This is who I am.

“What if I lose control again? At Thornspire?”

His grip tightens, protective and possessive. “Then I’ll be there to help you find it again.”

The certainty in his voice should be reassuring, but it isn’t. Whatever awaits us at Thornspire, I’m terrified that this wild, uncontrolled part of me will put everyone at risk. That when the moment comes, I’ll be the liability that costs us everything. Costs Sacha everything.

His warmth against my back, the steady rhythm of his breathing against my neck, and the way his fingers unconsciously trace patterns on my side. All of it reminds me of what’s at stake. What I could lose. What we could all lose.

I need to learn control, and quickly. This isn’t about my survival anymore, or even trying to get home. It’s about these people who have accepted me, bled for me. It’s about Sacha, who risks everything for his people.

Because I’ve just had a brutal lesson in what happens when power responds to fear rather than purpose. And at Thornspire, fear will be waiting for me with open arms.