Page 179 of Fires of the Forsaken
This woman was a stranger.
Yet I was so excited at the prospect of seeing her, of speaking with her, that I sprinted the last few steps. Her name rested on the tip of my tongue—and I was certain it was her name, even if I’d never uttered the word before.
The wind blew again, harsher this time.
The golden-haired woman vanished.
But the odor of smoke and death only intensified. And soon the familiar sound of wailing accompanied it.
I lurched forward, crying out when I found myself falling, my body plummeting for what seemed like an eternity before I hit the ground.
Above me, a horse snorted, and the echoing sound of hooves against hard dirt struck close to my ear. The animal had very nearly trampled me.
Such a shame it missed.
“The girl!” Someone called, although their voice seemed far away. “The bloody horse ran off!”
I wrenched my eyes open and coughed, spitting out a mouthful of dirt. It took several tries to lift myself off the ground—my hands were bound, and my muscles weak. The change in height as I went from lying to sitting left me winded.
Smoke curled through the air. Heavy, black smoke, too thick to see through.
I squinted, a sliver of fear striking my gut.
I’d lost control of my power again, hadn’t I?
The surrounding shrieks deafened me but I saw nothing through the plume.I didn’t know how many people were suffering. Hundreds, perhaps thousands.
My stomach ached.Would the fire ever be satiated? Even my fever hadn’t dampened its appetite.
A shadow caught my eye, and I turned as a woman staggered into me.
My heart leapt and I wondered—hoped—if this was the golden-haired woman from my dream. But sadly, ‘twas not. This woman had a mane of dark hair. I recognized her.
My captor.
I’d spent the last three days riding with her as I drifted in and out ofconsiousness—conciou—consciousness. Every time I woke, she threatened to kill me.
“If I see but a wisp of smoke,” she had snarled, many times, “I won’t hesitate.” She punctuated her words by pressing the flat side of a steel blade to my throat. Even while riding on a briskly jogging horse and holding my prone body steady with her right arm, it took her a mere second to draw her knife.
Of course, when I asked her to follow through with her warnings, she refused. “We need you alive. ButIwant you to feel the pain you’ve inflicted on others.” And then she would dig the edge of the blade into my neck, my shoulders, or my arms. The shallow cuts drew blood but were not enough to end my life.
I was, after all, labeled as Seruf’s pet. An evil, inhuman monster that needed to suffer.
And now this woman, who’d once happily lashed at my skin, grasped onto my shoulders, her eyes wild with fear. She breathed almost as poorly as I—her every inhale a long wheeze.
“You should have killed me,” I told her.
“What?”
“You should have killed me!” A salty tear splashed across my lips. “You buffoons simply won’tlisten. You insist on keeping me alive, threatening death, but failing to deliver it.”
“What are you blathering about?” she snapped.
I gestured wildly to the vapors surrounding us. “How many times must I repeat myself? Icannotcontrol my power!” Yelling made my lungs burn, so I quieted my voice. “Killing me won’t save this place, but it will prevent this from happening again. Stop making empty promises anddo it.”
The woman opened her mouth but paused as the screams swelled around us. The noise seemed almost tangible; as though I could stretch out my hand and physically grasp a person’s pain.
“This wasn’t you,” the woman said.
