Page 83 of Storm of Blood and Shadow

Did Kyreagan ever come to see me? I can’t recall, nor can I be certain how long I’ve been on East Fang.

I have no control over my shape or my magic anymore; I have to look down at myself to remember which form I’m in. It’s all blurring together as I am slowly unmade, gnawed apart and devoured from within. I have no solid ground, no guiding star, no current of wind to bear me steadily aloft, nothing to tether myself to reality.

Thunder echoes inside me, shaking my bones.

No, it’s not inside me—it’sbelowme. Above me? I can’t be sure.

I blink, trying to clear the flickers of lightning from my vision.

“Varex.” The gentle feminine voice teases at my memory.

“Don’t get too close to him,” warns a deep male voice.

“Kyreagan?” I whisper.

“I am here.” His response gives me hope and a moment of precious clarity. With a monstrous mental effort, I manage to bring my true self closer to the surface, and my vision clears slowly.

Sunshine. A grassy bank sloping upward to the cliff’s edge. Outlined against the blue sky, I can see my brother’s dragon form—his long neck, horned head, and huge black wings. On the ground lie a couple of bundles—supplies of some kind—and at his side stands a human female with long red hair.

Jessiva.

Hope blazes in my heart, instantly replaced by dread.

“No,” I groan. “No, why did you bring her here? I will kill her, Kyreagan. Take her away, please.”

“No,” says Jessiva firmly. She walks toward me, and I realize I’m in human form, standing in the center of a huge hollow I must have carved into the ground while I was a dragon. She slides down the earthen slope into the hollow and approaches me. “I’m not leaving you again, Varex. Never, do you understand?”

“You hated me,” I say hoarsely. “You couldn’t bear to touch me or be near me.”

“That was the Mordvorren,” she says. “A bit of it infested me temporarily. It wanted to keep me away from you. But I’m back now, and the part of me that it used for a foothold is gone,healed, resolved. It can’t possess me again. That’s the key, Varex. You have to destroy whatever it’s using to control you.”

I can barely hear her through the roaring of the storm inside my head. It’s screaming, raging at her return. When we were confined on Ouroskelle, it used her as leverage to drive me mad so I wouldn’t realize my own power, the threat I posed to its autonomy. Nowsheis the threat, the one who might be able to prevent it from fully overtaking me, and it’s furious that it failed to drive her away for good.

It takes me a while to work this out in my head, but Jessiva waits patiently while I formulate thoughts and words.

“I can’t focus,” I say through clenched teeth.

“You look too fucking thin,” she says matter-of-factly. “And you’re naked and dirty. I’m going to fix you some dinner, and Kyreagan is going to take you for a wash. I brought you some clothes.”

My gaze moves past her, first to Kyreagan and then to the place on the slope where she and I built ourselves a shelter with sticks and mud. It’s a pile of debris now. I must have smashed it when I wasn’t in control of myself.

“Our house is gone,” I say vaguely.

“We’ll build another one,” she says. “A better one.”

Kyreagan extends his wings and sails off the edge of the cliff, then circles back around, picks me up in his front claws, and snatches one of the smaller bundles from the ground.

“Come, brother,” he says. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You stink of shit.”

He carries me down to the beach, where he transforms into his human self—light brown skin, long black hair, and a pair of horns. I look down at my body, realizing that he’s right. I’m caked in my own filth.

Shame overwhelms me at the thought of Jessiva seeing me in this state.

“I don’t understand what’s been happening since I got here,” I whisper.

“I’m not sure this place is healthy for you,” he replies. “It smells unwholesome.”

“Are you sure you’re not just smelling me?” I make a faint attempt at a smile.

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