A Twist of the Blade (Shadows and Crowns Book 2) by S.M. Gaither

Author:S.M. Gaither [Gaither, S.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2021-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Nessa screamed.

Cas reached her side in the next instant, and she flung herself down upon the sand and immediately started to dig. She clawed at the spot where she’d last seen Laurent, throwing handful after handful of sand aside until long after she could no longer feel her fingers.

But it was pointless.

No matter how deeply she dug, she only found more sand.

“No.” She pressed her forehead to the ground and slammed her fist down beside her, over and over and over. “No!”

I shouldn’t have let him come with me. I shouldn’t have let any of them come with me—

“Cas?” Nessa’s voice was quiet. Weak with emotion. And at first this was the only thing she managed to say, over and over—

Cas, Cas, Cas.

And somehow, Cas found the strength to lift up her head, and then to reach and gather Nessa in her arms and hold her tightly.

Everything remained strangely quiet and still. Even her roan, which Cas hadn’t thought to secure, was standing calmly nearby, pawing at the sand as if the horrors of the past few minutes hadn’t happened at all. Cas soon understood why; the air was warm, teeming softly with energy...

Which meant it was Nessa’s doing.

She was using her magic to soothe others even as she herself teetered on the edge of collapse.

But that magic had limits.

It hadn’t stopped either of their tears, and it didn’t stop Nessa’s body from shaking as she tried to hold the more violent sobs inside of her.

“I slowed him down,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have—”

“No.” Cas leaned back, took Nessa’s face in her hands. “This wasn’t your fault.”

Nessa stared back, numbly, her eyes wet and shimmering.

“This wasn’t your fault,” Cas repeated, more fiercely.

Nessa gave a single, miserable nod.

Cas pulled her back against her chest. Their hearts pounded together. The scarf gathered at Cas’s shoulder was soon damp with Nessa’s tears, but Cas was not crying. Not yet. Because her mind had narrowed itself on one single thought: Survive.

They had to survive.

They had to keep going.

It became an obsession—one that only became louder, more demanding, as the desert started to darken once again.

More storm clouds were gathering overhead.

Lightning struck the sands less than a hundred feet away, leaving another of those shining clumps of fused glass. As Cas stared at it, she felt more magic slipping into the air around her. Prickling her skin for a moment before becoming heavier, more violent, far different from the mild warmth of Nessa’s…

It was the same kind of magic Cas had felt from those tiger-like creatures, that powerful rush of it that was somehow foreign and familiar at the same time.

“I think another beast is coming. We have to go.” She leapt to her feet, dragging Nessa up with her. She managed to pull Nessa to the roan, and she had nearly convinced her to start climbing into its saddle when Nessa snapped out of her stupor and started to fight back, trying to rip free and return to the spot where Laurent was buried.

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