Page 83 of Thief of Souls
Please. Please!
A glowing hand reached out to me, plunging through the dark waters like a full moon rising.
“My little girl,” whispered a voice in my head, “if you ever need me, reach for me. I’ll be there for you. I promise. I love you… I love you….”
I took that hand, and it felt like a doorway opened within my mind. I finally fell through it.
And then I was sobbing in the forest and that door was still open somehow, an invisible hand stroking through my hair before the sensation faded and a pair of dry leaves skittering over my skin as the wind stirred them.
My eyes blink open, and I’m standing in front of the sarcophagus.
I’d forgotten about that hand, that voice….
I Sifted beyond sight that first time.
Yanking my hands off the stone, I strip the glamor from my skin and stare as a faint luminescence bleeds through. I’ve spent my entire life hiding that light. It’s a dangerous kind of weakness to show before my wraithen brothers and sisters.
Before my king….
Swallowing hard, I curl my fingers around the glow. Spears of light stab through my clenched fingers. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what any of it means.
But there’s one thing that’s starting to embed itself in my mind: Shadow is the absence of light. Light is the death of shadow.
What if I was able to manipulate more than mere shadow?
You are not merely wraithenkind, Zemira….
I let the light escape along with the exhale of my breath. Even if I am half fae, there’s nothing for me in this world. My ghostly pale skin sees to that. I can hide it behind glamor, but I’ll always be hiding it. I would be forever living a lie, no matter how much I yearn for that lie.
There is no place of acceptance here, even if I wish I could escape my father’s court….
The only one who has ever accepted me—betrayals or no betrayals—is entombed alive within this sarcophagus.
Soraya is all that matters. I’ll need her if I’m going to be able to pull off this heist.
Or maybe I just need her.
It’s a bitter antidote to swallow.
I place my hands on the stone again.
And this time I push through them.
Soraya. Soraya. Soraya.I try and channel that focus, that desperation I had the first time I Sifted beyond my limits. Darkness flickers in and out of my mind—there’s something….
There.
I plunge through the sarcophagus, and then I’m tumbling onto a warm body.
“What the fuck?” Soraya bursts out, grabbing me by the wrists.
I’m groggy and disorientated, but I have precisely two seconds to remember she’s an assassin and will probably take to my sudden appearance in a similar way to a sleeping cat that’s suddenly had a dog thrown upon it.
“It’s me!” I hiss as she wrestles with me. “Soraya! It’s me!”
Harsh gasps burst through the small space as she freezes. “Z?”
I wilt against her. “Hold tight.” There are chains around her wrist. “I need to pick these locks.”
