Page 21 of Bright Soul

Next to me, Jonah muttered, “Fuck. I remember bringing those two in.”

“My best estimate is that one will breach by midday. It will help its mate escape too, and then we have a serious problem,”Braza said, projecting a feeling in my head. It was like I took in her urgency and concern as if it were my own.

Leona finally had enough and stepped back from the powercore, panting. Jonah motioned for Aurora to go up next. “What is a doskalo?” I asked him.

“Imagine a dog with the worst mange you’ve ever seen. Then picture it standing on two legs and being eight feet tall, with acidic saliva and a taste for human flesh.”

“No thanks,” I said under my breath.

Leona picked up where he left off. “They hunt in packs made up of a mated pair and their juvenile kids. They reproduce like crazy if left unchecked and go berserk if separated from their partner. I should’ve guessed the doskalos would be our first big challenge.”

I went up to Braza last, still picking up on Leona whispering to Jonah and Aurora, “We’ll see if the coven of kids Mad Ash left us can keep up.”

Braza fed me a surge of power.“I wish to witness the experimenting Wren tries with your magic. You two may use my chamber this evening,”she said to me privately.

“Thank you,”I thought back to her.

A feeling like the caress of cool fingers drifted across my hand. I wondered if Braza would take her full humanoid form with others in the room, but she soon traced the circular pattern that marked my left wrist. It was Phaeron’s mark of protection, a bit of magic that connected us. Hope thundered through my heart as she channeled her power into it rather than me.

The last time she’d utilized this trick, I’d been too new to my magic to realize what she was doing. But now I felt the electric current and the way it flowed from me into him, a single brightline of energy extending out to him that resonated with a feeling of shock when it connected.

Phaeron’s voice filled my head like Braza’s did, in the alien syllables and hisses of their native language. I had an overwhelmed smile, tears pricking the corner of my eyes. His deep, smooth voice was unchanged. Even if he spoke with clipped urgency, it was still him.

“I have not yet given Cress a boon to understand the language of Soiluire. She is with us as well,”Braza said to him. Her power waned, like the dimming of a light, until our connection was a filament of spider silk.

“Cress?”he breathed, as faint as a whisper from one room over.“I had hoped you would escape.”

“Not without you,”I answered in my head.

He laughed, and goosebumps erupted over my body in discomfort. It was off-tune, a scrape of sandpaper rather than the velvet I would expect.“What manner of the Void is this? A reflection of my mate to haunt me?”

Braza’s presence nudged aside my own.“No tricks, my prince. Ask us anything for proof.”

She pushed me from the powercore physically, through a bank of purple smoke that swirled around me and eddied around Leona’s concerned self as she approached. The connection persisted, a tense strand at the back of my thoughts. “You must’ve been quite depleted,” the head librarian said.

At the same time, Phaeron transitioned back to their home language, and Braza replied. I couldn’t focus on them and the woman in front of me at the same time, so I gave my head a stern shake. “Yeah, something like that,” I said vaguely.

We went to retrieve my coven and a handful of Crystal fae who’d recently arrived alongside a nervous-looking verdant witch nurse. They were our support from Madigan and the only staff member the hospital could spare if something went wrong.The fae had armed themselves from the silver weapons we had left, and the leftovers were packed up and in transit back to our allies.

We started the process of descending to the second-lowest level of the library while Leona outlined our strategy. Considering the weight of the fae’s crystal armor and Geo’s stone form, we would use the elevator in shifts to floor negative twenty-eight. From there, we would take the stairs to our destination.

My three cat familiars would scout things out first, along with Ben’s ferret, Flit. Dimensional creatures of all kinds tended to overlook small furry companions, making them the perfect little spies.

Somewhere in the planning, Phaeron whispered my name, and I tuned out all the noise around me. He was still there, a desperate little voice over the many miles separating us. I echoed his name back, yearning for his presence and the night air scent of the shadows that clung to him.

“Tell me of my name for you so I might know you from the Void,”he urged.

“It’s bright soul. I don’t know if you picked it up from Braza or just decided to start calling me that because it’s literal,”I said.

“Cress… How I’ve desired to hear your voice again rather than the echoes of my own desires. Are you well? Wait. Do not tell me too much, for Myuna may compel it from my tongue.”

“I’m okay,”I said, a little puzzled. When we’d first met, he spoke like this…a touch old fashioned. Maybe I hadn’t questioned it enough when he’d picked up on modern lingo with ease.

Besides…why did it matter? He was in serious danger if Myuna was able to “compel” him to do anything.“Has she hurt you? How do we rescue you?”

“We are in a battle of endurance,”he said. I had the impression of his weary sigh.“I have slept not a wink since I last beheld your face. How long has it been?”

My brow furrowed with concern.“Three days.”

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