Page 211 of Brimstone
And it hurt.
It kept on hurting as my palms swelled with light and poured into Onyx’s broken and bloody body.
So much magic. A monumental tide rolled through me and kept on going . . . and I was met with darkness. A nothingness so vast that trying to fill it felt like a ridiculous task.
Cold seeped into my fingertips and into my hands. It climbed up my arms, creeping slowly, slowly up toward my elbows. The agony of it fractured me—my body, my mind, my hope—leaving only my will intact. I would not give up here. Even if I wanted to, I suspected that I couldn’t.
I’d opened a door, and death stood on the other side of it. If I didn’t push it back and succeed in my goal, he would step through and claimmeinstead.
Higher.
Higher.
The cold of the eternal dark crawled up to my armpits.
Come on, Osha. You can do this.
Wind whipped at my hair. My eyes were closed or unseeing—I couldn’t differentiate. I was locked in a tug-of-war, funneling my magic into a bottomless vessel that did not want to be filled—
Keep going!Fisher urged inside my head.
The cold clamped around my throat, closing off my airways. It beckoned to me, promising such restful sleep . . .
I pushed harder, hurling my magic into the Hazrax’s rune. Blisters ballooned on the backs of both of my hands, filling and bursting in seconds, the flesh beneath raw and singed.
Yes. That’s it, Saeris. Go! Go!
One last push. One huge shove . . . and the door between this life and the next slammed closed.
The cold in my chest disappeared.
I—I—
Onyx’s eyes were closed. He was so still. He—
He moved. His paw. There! I saw it! It moved!
But his body was still broken. His side was torn wide open and bleeding afresh. He didn’t have long. I’d brought him back into his body, and it could not sustain him. He had a minute, maybe. Seconds. I reached for the magic I had bet everything on and found . . .nothing.
I’d used it all. There was nothing left. I’d drawn so much power to me, and it was all gone.
I reached for it again, again found nothing. I was falling through the air, stomach churning, weightless, trying to find a handhold,somethingto stop the fall, but there was nothing.
Panic—
No. There was no time for that.
I reached beyond my magic. Beyond my runes. Beyond the bond there, connecting me to my mate. I reached, fighting millimeter by millimeter, until I finally found what I was looking for.
I didn’t know the words.
Was I even supposed tosayanything?
Was there some kind of covenant, or . . . ahh, fuck it, my intentions would have to be good enough. Death rattled the door handle. I could feel it. He was coming for Onyx a second time. I acted quickly, plucking up a small kernel of the energy I had discovered, and I pushed it up, past my bond with Fisher, past the empty reserve where my magic should have been, into my body, into the raw Alchimeran shield that was smoking on the back of my hand . . . and then into the little white fox.
The world trembled in response, a shock wave rocking the snowy slope, and out of nowhere a grim white dawn broke over the saw-toothed mountain range of Ajun, casting back the dark.
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