Page 136 of A Dance of Water

It had picked up in intensity after Az had been ripped away from her. She had gone through her grounding exercises with Tharen, her attention only half-focused, consumed by rage and a thirst for vengeance.

They had shackled her demon. She wanted them to pay.

It was Vale who had given the order after Tharen had walked her through the connections with the senses. A foreboding,Run, was allthe warning she had been given before sparks of hot flames had licked at the back of her heels, gobbling up the grass and trees and forcing her deeper into the forest.

A wicked game of hunter and prey.

Luella stumbled over a gnarled root, the tip of her boot catching. She gasped, feeling the rain on her tongue. Her equilibrium was off, only made worse by her lack of sight. And she fell down, down. Her elbows crashed against the dirt, a rock sharply digging into her ribs. She hissed at the pain, fingers curling in the mud.

At that moment, she wanted to give in. Stay where she was and let her body turn to dust amid the earth, allow the rain to wash the remnants of her away.

A loud howl echoed throughout the trees, and she gasped, cheek pressed into the ground as she lifted her head. Mud cracked on her face. Her ears strained, struggling to hear through the sound of the rain.

Another howl.

This time, closer.

Every part of her body froze as she understood what the sound was.

Wolves.

Tharen had called for his wolf pack to join in on the hunt.

A rush of adrenaline flooded through Luella, and she scrambled to a stand, bracing a hand on the tree by her side.

Standing blind and vulnerable, she felt only fear and anxiety.

"Come on," Luella said softly. She searched inside herself for the source of power. A deep well opened up, and she loomed over it, staring down into a pit of nothing, poised to topple into its depths of darkness.

The howls grew closer.

She couldn’t take a full breath. Her lungs ached, and the rain only grew more furious. Thunder shook the sky, lightning crashing down. The bolt was close; electricity zinged through the air, and she swore she felt tendrils of static reach out for her.

"Come on, come on," she murmured like a prayer, wiping her clammy palms on her drenched cloak.

The well thrummed, pulsing in time with the threads inside her.

That’s it!she realized.

"The threads…"

She didn’t have to use her power to get the better of them, she only had to use the threads to get a sense of where they were so she could stay far away.

A small, triumphant smile broke free, and she pressed a hand to her lower stomach,feeling.

To the left, close, and only growing closer with each moment she stood unmoving, a warped, twisted thread. She pushed deeper, feeling frost wrapped around it—Tharen.

The Prima was close by.

And so were his wolves.

Howls cut through the thick sheets of rain that pelted against her skin, and she ran once more.

Her steps were slow in fear, hands searching. She stumbled and fell, but always got back up again.

The ground grew even soggier under her boots, squelching with every footfall. It was an effort just to pick up her feet. Tree bark scratched her palms, and she veered to the side, narrowly missing running face-first into a tree.

As the air opened around her, her hands no longer grazed thick trunks, and low-hanging branches didn’t reach out to whip against her arms and face. Her toes scrunched in her boots as the ground sloped, and she was propelled forward, her upper body falling forward from the force. The earth gave way under her feet, and she rolled, tucking her hands over her head to protect herself.

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