Page 86 of Daughter of No Worlds

“I do,” I said, with a nod. And in her returning nod, the corners of Nura’s mouth curled.

“Good. In that case, we begin…”

She raised one finger. Then two.

Three.

“Now.”

Then she lifted her hands, and I was plunged into complete darkness.

* * *

The darkness swallowedme like a vat of ink, gargling in my lungs. I had to remind myself to breathe. My heartbeat quickened in pulsing shivers at the edges of my vision.

Breathe, Tisaanah. This isn’t your only sight.

I closed my eyes — out of habit, as the room was so dark that it made no difference in visibility — and reached around me, feeling the edges of the room with invisible hands, searching for the spheres. In my mind’s eye, they began to throb with a faint, silver light. I caught their thread, and with it came a silent breath of relief.

I have this. This is nothing.

I began to draw one of the orbs towards me, pulling it from its stand. But the moment I did, it was immediately knocked away, a violent force sending it careening across the marble floor. I lunged after it—

—And was yanked somewhere far away, into a wall of cold. Cold that surrounded me, inhaled me, settled deep into my bones and guts. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, the darkness melted into endless, rippling grass and smeared stars.

I felt liquid run down my back — down the backs of my thighs. Scalding compared to the icy air.

My blood.

I was in the plains, in Threll. Wearing that dingy coat. With my dying horse.

A shiver of cold, of fear, of terror, ran up my spine. An illusion, I told myself. This was Nura. It wasn’t real.

Isn’t it?

I closed my eyes again. The backs of my eyelids revealed the same scene, the plains seared into my brain. My mind groped forward, searching for that thread of reality, dragging myself back to the tower, back to the room, back to those pedestals…

The plains flickered away, dissolving like sand in the wind.

The orbs glowed in front of me again. One of them slowly rolled across the floor.

I used magic to yank it towards me, snapping it to my fingers. It was pleasantly cool in my hands, firm and solid andreal.I turned to drop it into the basin, smiling with satisfaction at the sound of metal against metal.

And then, suddenly, I was hit with a force. A wall of air so strong that it struck my body like a block of cement. Before I knew what was happening, I felt myself careen across the room, felt my back slam against a curved wall. My throat released a muffled, wordless cry.

Darkness again, and as I slid down the wall, I dipped back beneath the surface of that drowning illusion. The marble beneath my hands and knees was the marble of Esmaris’s study.

Crack.

Twenty-four. Twenty-five.

Esmaris’s flace flickered through the shadow, peering out from beneath a wide-brimmed, black hat. Terror drowned me.

You forgot what you are.

Not real. Not real. Not real.

It is real.

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