Page 56 of Soul of Thorns
I pity the little thing. There’s no way it can survive this storm.
I blink, and there are hands surrounding the flame. Large hands with rough skin and a scar along one thumb. He’s saving the flame or trying, at least. Protecting it from the raging storm.
“Why bother?” I mutter. It’s hopeless.
The protector’s eyes flash to me, angry. He snarls, silver eyes darkening.
I turn from the faltering flame and continue through the enteral darkness.
My heart sinks as something shifts in the blanket of darkness before me. The nothingness ripples.
Then, I see him.
A being so massive he’s like darkness incarnate. All around. Inside of me. Controlling me.
Night Bringer.
No,I scream inside, but I can’t move. I’m frozen.
He laughs as he sends slashes of wind through the air. I wince at the attack, but it simply blows my hair back and continues slicing through the air past me, straight to the figure protecting the little flame.
This last strike puffs out the flame like a breath, here then gone.
The Night Bringer roars in triumph, laughing hysterically. Except it doesn’t come from the darkness before me. It comesfromme.
My lips move. “You’ve lost, my pet,” I say with his voice. “Myhost.”
The floor falls out from beneath me, and I fall through pitch blackness clawing at me. Fall. And fall.
My choice, my hope, my innocence, myvery soulstolen from me. Ripped away. So easily discarded.
No, a harsh voice booms through the darkness. My body slams onto hard smooth ground, my vision still only seeing a blanket of pitch-black covering everything.
The blanket of blackness flickers, revealing searing red flames.Never your soul. The deep, strangely familiar voice echoes through me.
Suddenly free from the raging pain, I open my eyes. All I see are flames flickering and reaching for me.
“What?” I ask the voice.
My mind is free from the spell for a moment.
He took many things from you, child. But your soul was never one of them.
I pull in a long breath. “Who are you?” I ask stupidly. Is this part of the trial? Part of the magic of the flames? It feels... foreign. Like something else is here, pushing me along.
“I am the keeper of the magic of these lands. My very being is stitched into every ounce. It is my punishment. My eternal prison.”
I blink as it suddenly clicks. I do remember the strange feminine voice.
“The Wicked Gates,” I mutter.
“Yes, I am the keeper of the gates.”
“Did I pass my judgment?” I blink, thinking of the extinguished flame. “Did I fail?”
Is that why everything was black, why she’s talking to me now?
“You are not yet finished, Caelynn of the Shadow Court. But I do have a message for you.”
