Page 168 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
Her gaze flicked, for the first time, to Steeler, who still had a hand against my lower back and was watching her retreat with palpable impatience simmering beneath his skin. He didn’t trust her enough not to attack us as soon as our backs were turned, apparently, but he was already itching to go help the others.
Dyonisia gave me a second power when I became suspicious of his connection to the other four and reported my suspicions to her in my fourth year at the Institute,Kimber continued in my head, urgency smothering her tone, as if she were begging me to understand.She wanted me to spy on his mind… but he broke up with me soon after, and I wasn’t ever strong enough to break past all of his barriers. Then you came along, and did what I could not.
She opened her eyes, looking pained.
I didn’t realize that Dyonisia was playing me, feeding into my hatred, until they Branded Jenia in the sick bay… they gave her Mind Manipulating, not to recruit her, but to see if she could recover any of her missing memories of that day in the jungle. Dyonisia didn’t care that it might make her go insane. She only cared about figuring out howhe’descaped her clutches.
Another subtle nod at Steeler, one that he noticed with a narrowing of his eyes, distrust and loathing emitting from him like the smoke around us.
Dyonisia will not let him escape again, Kimber finished.
When she finally turned and hobbled off with her arm slung around her sister and her parakeet fluttering after her, I recognized those words for what they were.
Not a threat, but a plea—from one woman who had once loved a male to another who…
I let the rest of that thought bleed into my subconscious so that I could focus on the point of her message.
Protect him.
Save him.
At that moment, Barberro bellowed out a Sorronian curse even louder than the shrieks of monsters, and Steeler and I whirled toward him. One of the exiled monsters with a mouthful of sharp, needle-like teeth had clamped down on his arm, impaling it in three dozen places up to his elbow. Next to him, Nara screamed as her own arm went limp.
Phantom pain, I realized. From their mating bond.
“Go,” I hissed at Steeler.
It seemed I was always telling him that when all I wanted was for him to stay. But there was no denying I was holding him back. With his Walking power, he could have all of these monsters disarmed in minutes, and Barberro needed helpnow.
Steeler didn’t need to be told twice. He only flashed me a single look that seemed to beg a thousand things at once before he disappeared and reformed on the other end of the square, already a blur of movement.
I flicked my attention to Garvis, who was battling a boar-like monster in a dance that moved closer and closer to where I stood. It looked like he’d already mutilated three of the boar’s brands with his machete—only the left shoulder and forehead still to go.
When the boar suddenly erupted with a new set of tusks along either side of its body, one of them narrowly missing Garvis’s abdomen, I hurled the knife in my hand.
The blade embedded in the monster’s snout. It twisted in a furious circle in a futile attempt to dislodge it, giving Garvis enough time to jump back and make eye contact with me for a second that seemed to waver on the brink of time.
There’s something I need to do,I shot into his head. If Steeler realizes I’m gone, tell him I’ll be right back.
Rayna, I don’t think that’s a good—
Behind you!
Garvis whirled back to the boar as it charged him again.
I didn’t waste another drop of the time I felt ticking in my veins.
I ran.
Down a side street where I batted swirls of white-hot ashes out of my way, coughing as I went. Up an avenue that climbed a ridge of the cliff, bordered by homes with glass that had long shattered. Toward the vague outline of the jungle I could make out beyond the veil of smoke.
Finally, when the blast of heat had faded behind me and the first unburnt weed appeared in the cracks of the cobblestone, I dropped to my knees and began to crawl, searching, searching, searching…
There. A scurrying dot of brightest red.
“You,” I panted, “can you help me? I need to send a message.”
I didn’t realize I was sweating until a single drop rolled off my nose and splatted onto the stone right beside the fire ant.
