Page 104 of Veinblood
For one crushing moment, I wonder if sharing my power killed her. If I poured too much across the distance and burned out her life’s essence.
I can’t believe that. I won’t.
I force my eyes open despite the agony that threatens to split my skull in half. The world swims in and out of focus, trees and sky blurring together in nauseating waves.
“How long?” My voice is a rough croak, throat raw from the retching of earlier.
“Four hours.” Varam replies from somewhere to my left, relief evident in his tone. “We were starting to worry you wouldn’t wake up.”
Four hours. Four hours during which anything could have happened to Ellie. Four hours of silence where there should be a constant, subtle awareness of her presence.
I struggle to sit up, fighting through waves of dizziness that make the world tilt sickeningly. Every movement sends fresh spikes of pain through my head and ribs, but I force myself upright through sheer will.
“The bond … I can’t feel her anymore.”
“Is that good or bad?” Mira crouches beside me, and hands me a waterskin.
The water is cool against my throat, but it does nothing to ease the hollow ache in my chest where Ellie's presence should be. “I don’t know. I lost the connection when we first returned to Meridian, but it came back. We need to reach Ashenvale.”
“You can barely sit up without falling over. You won’t be able to walk to the city in your condition.”
“I don’t care.” The words come out edged with desperation I can’t conceal.
“Rushing to Ashenvale will help no one,” Varam argues, unmoved by my glare. “You’ll collapse before we’re halfway there, and then we’ll have to carry you the rest of the way. That’s not how we get into Ashenvale without being seen.”
I want to argue, to insist that every moment we delay could be crucial, but unfortunately, he’s right. My legs feel like water,my vision still swims with exhaustion. In my current state, I’m more liability than asset.
“At first light then,” I concede, hating every word. “We leave at dawn.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
ELLIE
“What is taken in hatred may yet be reclaimed through love.”
Love Songs of the Mountain Provinces
Sereven takesanother step toward me. Sunlight catches the crystal pieces in his face, sending blue light across his features. Blood seeps around each embedded piece.
“Elowen.” My name rolls off his tongue like a prayer, reverent and possessive. The sound makes my skin crawl. “My greatest creation, come home to me at last.”
I take a quick look around the plaza, searching desperately for Corwin, foranyfamiliar face, but we’re alone. Smoke drifts through the air, acrid and thick, carrying the smell of burning wood. Battle cries echo off the walls as Veinwardens and Authority soldiers clash in the distance.
The mist stalker shifts beside me, its eyes fixed on Sereven. The creature’s form grows more solid while I watch, every bunched muscle promising swift death if he comes too close.
“Come home to you?” I force myself to stay steady, despite the way his presence makes me want to recoil. “I wasneveryours.”
“Of course you were. You still are.” For a moment his features distort behind the blue light reflecting off the crystal shards. “I shaped you, molded you, filled you with power beyond anything this world has ever seen. You exist because of me.”
“You shapednothing!” Sparks of light crackle along my arms. “You filled a child with stolen power you thought would kill her. But it didn’t. That wasn’t through anything you did. That doesn’t make me yours.”
“It makes you absolutely mine.” He takes a step closer, ignoring the stalker’s warning growl. “Every ability you possess came from me. Every power flowing through your veins exists becauseIput it there. You aremywill made manifest.”
“It doesn’t matter what you caused.” My voice hardens. “I decide how to use what’s inside me. I decide who to help and who to fight.”
“All choices I gave you the power to make.” His smile widens, revealing teeth stained blue from whatever corruption is running through his veins. “Without the abilities I placed in you, what would you be? Nothing. You’d be powerless. Insignificant. Every choice you make is only possible because of whatIturned you into.”
The word ‘nothing’ cuts deep. Because that’s exactly what I was before this. Ellie Bennett, invisible in every room she entered. The girl no one adopted. The woman who disappeared from Chicago and no one even noticed.
