Page 68 of Shadow Weaver
“Stop. Fucking hell.” I needed to contain him, to get to him. The power of the weave was a throb in my blood, and instinct told me I needed to touch him, to lay hands on his skin while the weave was flowing through me. The connection, this strong connection I’d forged, wouldn’t last. I could feel it ebbing. But it was impossible to get close to him, though. He was swinging like a madman. I’d have been dead without my nightblood vision.
I had to get out of the tunnel. I needed help.
But leaving him there like this wasn’t an option.
There was only one thing to do.
“Sorry, Madam Latrou. I’m going to have to do this. Again.” I ran at him, ducking under his swing to snag him around the waist and propel him back into the darkness. The fortress … I needed to get to the fortress.
The familiar tingle of the phasing washed over me, and then we were landing in a heap on flagstones.
Brady roared, and then his fists came down, intent on smashing me. I rolled off him in time to avoid being flattened and landed on my butt.
The dining hall, we’d landed in the dining hall. Brady was up and charging at me. My body was too weak to run. I scrabbled back on my ass, chest heaving. Shit, shit.
Exclamations lit the air, and then knights were on Brady, knocking him onto the ground and holding him down.
“What is this?” Henrich glared from me to a thrashing, bellowing Brady.
I pulled myself up. “Something attacked us in the tunnels. It gets into your head. The black veins …” I pointed at Brady. “I used the weave to break free of it. I need to touch him. I can help.”
Henrich had paled. “Hold him still,” he barked at the knights.
The knights obeyed. Faces I’d never seen before watched me carefully as I approached Brady.
“Hey.” I straddled him best I could. “Hush. I got you.”
His eye whites had bled to black. He bared his teeth and snapped at me.
I laid my hands on his face. “Come on, Brady. Come back to me.”
I locked onto the power inside, the glowing, warm ball that pulsed at my solar plexus, and then closed my eyes and imagined it unfurling. Imagined the power traveling down my arms, into my hands, and into Brady.
Please. Please, let this work.
It was a gut feeling. A long shot.
My hands tingled and grew warm, and then Brady screamed.
My eyes snapped open to see the veins in his face burning white, and then grainy black shit shot out of his mouth and rose up into the air. It hit the ceiling and then was engulfed in white flames.
Brady’s body relaxed, and his eyes fluttered closed. My body trembled with the need to collapse.
The inky veins were gone.
“It’s over,” one of the knights said.
“No.” I looked up at Henrich. “Those things are out there. We need to figure out what they are.” The edges of my vision darkened. “You need to find out what—”
The world went dark.
I opened my eyes, and I was on something soft, a chaise longue. A study, not the dining room.
“She’s awake,” a female voice said. Deana’s face hovered over me. “You’re all right.”
I sat up slowly. “Brady?”
“He’s fine. Unconscious but alive.”
