Page 127 of Shardless

“Stabilize her!” Ivain’s voice sounded far away. “It has to be you, boy!”

Taly’s eyes drooped shut, and she felt something pulling her back to the relay room—a gentle tug, almost like there was a string attachedto one of her ribs.

A rush of magic washed over her, abruptly jolting her awake, and then someone was shaking her. Opening her eyes, she discovered that she was still in the townhouse. Skye gripped her shoulders, and she felt the distinct tingle of shadow magic anchoring her in place.

“Taly?” Skye’s voice was laced with panic. “Taly, where are you?”

Taly reached up to grasp at his wrist, but it was like trying to hold on to smoke. Something warm trickled down her cheek, and she wiped at it, expecting dirt or sweat, maybe even tears. Her eyes widened when she pulled her hand away only to see that her fingers were stained red. She blinked, and more blood began leaking from her eyes, then her nose, even her ears.

Something was tugging at her again. More forcefully this time. Urging her to return to the relay room.

“What’s happening to her?” someone snapped. Sarina? Maybe?

“Hold on to her!” But again, the voice was distant, jumbled.

Another spark of shadow magic and Skye was tapping her cheek. His hands remained clean even as they wiped at the streaks of red staining her skin. “C’mon. Stay with me. Just a little longer. Where are you? Are you still on Tempris? Are you at the palace?”

“Oh, my little one,” Sarina sobbed. She tried reaching for her, grasping at Taly’s shoulder, but it was like trying to touch a ghost. “What have they done to you?”

Taly stared at the blood dripping down her fingers until Skye gently wrapped a hand aroundher wrist. When she looked up, he was watching her, a mixture of terror and despair distorting his features. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she murmured.

“Where are you?” Skye’s voice was gentle and sad. “Please. I know you’re hurt; I know you’re tired. But I need you to tell me where you are. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”

Taly shook her head, not sure how to answer that question. She didn’t know where she was anymore, if she was anywhere at all. So, she said, instead, “I found the relay. I talked to Ivain.”

Skye jerked his head. “Taly, I know, but—”

The world abruptly dissolved into a haze of light and sound and color. Voices whirled around her. She was being pulled in too many directions at once, but Skye—he dragged her back somehow.

“Taly, please.” Skye grabbed her chin, forcing her to look back at him. There were tears in his eyes now, and the room still blurred around the edges, snapping in and out of focus. She felt his magic pulling at her, willing her to stay in place, but he was losing his grip. “Please, Tink. Come back to me. Just stay alive.”

As the vision continued to fade, Taly did her best to smile. “I’m glad I got to see you one last time, Em.” She looked around the room, taking in the faces of everyone she held dear—Ivain, Sarina, Aiden. And Kato—well, she still felt a bit lukewarm about him, but he looked so stricken she couldn’t help but feel a pang of reluctant affection. “All of you.”

“Taly!”

A sharper tug this time and then she was falling.

The next time she opened her eyes, motes ofdust and ash hung suspended in the air, intertwined with sparkling pinpricks of golden light. Taly winced, shrinking back. Everything was too bright, the colors too vivid. Even the shadows seemed to come alive, and the quiet stillness was a raging tempest of sound to her overly sensitive ears.

Don’t do that again, a feminine voice whispered in her ear. The command was stern yet kind, and it stirred something inside her, some distant, forgotten memory.Now get up!

Taly pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the burning pain in her lungs. She forced herself to focus on her surroundings, despite the dull ache that had settled behind her eyes. She was back in the relay room, but there was light pouring inthroughthe walls. It took her a moment to realize why. It looked like a bomb had gone off in the room, turning the platform into a ruined hulk. The relay had cracked and shattered, and the wooden frame that made up the walls of the building had been splintered—erupting outward in a spray of fragmented pieces.

But the scene stood frozen in front of her—a moment of devastation suspended in time. Shards of crystal and wood hung in the air, and she turned, looking for her attacker, only to see that the shadow mage’s body had been flung to the side. His face was constricted in a distorted howl of rage as he reached for her, but his body was still, his limbs contorted in a motionless struggle.

Go!the voice screamed. It was clearer now, almost musical.Stop dawdling, you stupid child!

The ground was uneven beneath Taly’s boots, and the crunch of shattered wood echoed in the stillness as she staggered forward. The sentriesthat had been banging at the door as well as the shades that had been drawn by the gunfire had been thrown back by the blast and were lying motionless on the ground outside the relay building.

Not quite believing her eyes, Taly pushed her hair off her face, coming up short when she felt a sharpened point where her ear should be. “What the…” she mumbled, running a finger over the foreign shape.

In a daze, she stumbled through the main entrance, stepping over the door that had been flung off its hinges before setting off at a full sprint toward the forest and where she had tethered Byron.

A myriad of questions boiled and frothed in her mind. What the hell had just happened? Was that real? Had she really talked to Skye or was it just some sort of hallucination?

No, she thought, looking down at her hands. Hands that didn’t quite look like her own. Her fingers were too long, her skin too pale, and her wrists looked thinner, more delicate. There was fresh blood staining her fingers, and she could still feel a telltale wetness dripping from her ears. Definitely not a hallucination. If she were to look in a mirror, she was sure that her face would be streaked with drying trails of blood.

She searched for that wall in her mind, but it was gone now. Damaged beyond repair. There were still a few runes inscribed on her arm, but not many. The flesh there looked cleaner than it had in weeks. The remaining lines of Faera were faded and unevenly spaced, and although she didn’t recognize all of the characters, she did notice one marking that she was sure hadn’t been therebefore. The symbol for arho—a spiral of evenly spaced dots—had been inscribed on the top of her right hand, and the flesh around the impossibly neat strokes of shadow magic was still red and healing.

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