ASH
The smoke emanating from the braziers is some of the most noxious I’ve ever smelled. I have no idea how Rakel is managing to get through it. I’ve seen her gag at things that are barely half as objectionable.
It takes me back to the acrid, stinging vapours Zostar and his cronies used to release into the Room during the tests they conducted under Ekasya Mountain. It’s not the same, but even my blunt sense of smell can determine there are commonalities. My heartbeat quickens with the recognition and my survival instincts kick in, searching for the fight.
But while the enemy is on the approach for Aphorai City, there isn’t an external threat in the immediate vicinity. It’s just me, Rakel, and the smoke billowing from the braziers. The doors are barred. The roof is closed.
I’m trapped, says a voice in my mind. A younger voice.
No. I’m here willingly. I want this. I want the part of me I’ve always been ashamed of, the part I’ve always feared, to be gone.
I hoist myself on to the altar, trying to keep my breath calm and even.
“If this is anything like healing Nisai,” Rakel says, “or like out in the training yard, this isn’t going to be over without a struggle. But if it gets too much, we can stop and open the vents. Nothing says we have to get it right first time.”
She’s trying to remain positive, but I know her well enough to see through it. We don’t have time to try this over and again.
The more I breathe of the caustic smoke, the more hurt and frustration courses through me, red and blinding. I clamp down on it. Even if I deserve this curse, Zostar’s captives do not. They’re being used. And if I can lead the way to freeing them not just from the Mountain but from the very thing Zostar wants to exploit, then that’s what I must do.
I breathe deeply of the acrid fumes and let just a little of it burn into anger at the injustice of it. But I don’t let the rage consume me. A single flame, not a wildfire. Barely enough to wake the part of me that is always there in hibernation. The darkness that always waits. Ready.
Itching begins along my inked skin as the shadows start to shift and weave in and out of the clouds of sulphur and strange elixir vapours. The beast stirs, riling to be set free, but I keep it contained, focused, a single plume of smoke channelled through a censer.
The edge of my vision darkens. Shadows writhe across the walls of the huge chamber, plunging to the floor and darting back up to the roof where they rear and churn, as if in fury that they’re closed off to the last of the night.
My skin burns, the beast fighting for release. Drops of blood begin to form along the backs of my hands, as if the tips of the tattooed claws are digging into the flesh. And just like smoke from incense, the shadow begins to rise from the ink.
Rakel approaches, her expression equal parts fascination and dread. She reaches out, holds her hands in the air above mine, in the path of the darkness. Closes her eyes. Breathes deep, tendrils of smoke curling around her face. Tendrils of shadow reaching from the back of my hands to her palms.
She flinches as they make contact.
My control slips, the shadow surging forth. I jerk back.
“I’m fine.” She grates from between clenched teeth.
“Are you sure?”
She nods. Jaw set in determination. “I can do this.”