Throne of Dust by E. M. Knight

Author:E. M. Knight
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Edwards Publishing
Published: 2016-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Two

ELEIRA

SMITHSON’S CELL

When the earth shook, a tremendous influx of magical power burst into being, like a star being born.

It frightened me… but not as much as facing the Narwhark again frightened me.

Because, in the confrontation with it just now… I felt its growing sentience in my head.

The spell I used to attack it bubbled up from deep in my subconscious. It’s nothing I’d ever been taught. Saying the words and channeling the magical energy that way was completely instinctual.

It reminded me… it reminded me, in a way, of the time I’d been possessed by that unknown force.

There was a difference, of course. The spell Morgan put on my mind as a protective barrier broke the moment she fell. But because of it, I’d been able to learn how to shield my mind—in my own, rudimentary way—and to be able to tell if or when some external force was trying to probe it.

That’s how I recognized the connection with the demon. A link exists between it and me. I cannot deny that any longer. What it means, how it came to be, or how it’ll affect me in the future, I cannot say.

But it’s on a level deeper than what I can protect myself against. It’s a part of me, of my psyche, almost like the connection between Victoria and me had been.

“Who?” Phillip exclaims, breaking me from my reverie. “Who’s come?”

I look at him. “The other coven,” I say.

He swears. Smithson laughs.

“Where?” Phillip demands. He grabs my shoulders. “Eleira, where are they?”

I raise a hand and point vaguely in the right direction. After casting the spell and attacking the demon, I’m strangely light-headed. A daze has come over me, and the words that come from my lips carry none of the urgency they require.

“They’ve come…” I mumble, “for Raul.”

Smithson’s laughter increases. Phillip stares at me in disbelief. “How do you know?”

“The burst of magic,” I respond. Are these words mine? Is this body mine? “It came from his room.”

Again Phillip curses. He looks at the bleeding prisoner. I smell the blood from Smithson’s wounds, smell their rife corruption as his body tries to fight the demon saliva infecting them.

“We have to go help,” Phillip says. “Eleira—” then he notices, really notices, my vacant daze. “Eleira, what’s wrong?”

I shake my head. “It’s nothing,” I lie. “I just feel a bit… numb.”

Did casting that spell take so much out of me?

“You’re not like yourself.” I can tell Phillip is itching to go. I should be, too. But for whatever reason, I cannot muster up the requisite determination. “Eleira? Eleira!”

Phillip’s voice grows increasingly distant. I can see him, but it’s like he’s yelling at me from across an enormous canyon. There’s a gulf, a dissociation from reality that seems to be coming over me.

It feels like hours pass. And yet, as I look from Phillip’s concerned face, down to Smithson’s laughing form, I know that no time has lapsed at all.

What is happening to me? Why do I feel so… out of it?

“Eleira.

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