Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
SERIN
Idrift upward through layers of darkness, each one thinner than the last. Consciousness returns in fragments.
First pain, raw and scraping in my lungs with every breath.
Then pressure, a heaviness pins me down like grave dirt.
Sound comes next, distant and distorted as if filtering through water.
My eyelids are weighted, but I force them open to a world of smeared light and indistinct shapes.
They pulse and shift around me like spirits trapped between realms.
Blurred figures hover near what I slowly recognize as a cot beneath me.
They move with purpose, but my mind can't decipher it.
Their forms meld and separate in my compromised vision.
One leans close. Small, with quick movements.
Another stands back, tall and rigid. Their voices reach me through thick walls.
Words are indistinct, but tones are urgent.
Where am I? The thought forms sluggishly, struggling against the thick fog filling my mind. Not the grotto. Not the ash pit that swallowed me whole.
The ash pit…
Memory flashes bright and terrible of the ground dissolving beneath my feet, my body plunging into suffocating darkness, gray filling my nose, mouth, lungs.
The heartglass spun away, its light fading as I sank deeper.
The weight crushed my chest. I clawed desperately toward a surface I couldn't find.
My lungs burned as they filled with glass-laden death.
Panic flutters inside me, weakly, like a trapped bird too exhausted to fight. My fingers twitch against rough fabric, the only movement I can manage. I try to swallow. I nearly choke on the rawness of my throat, as if I've swallowed fire. Each breath scrapes like sandpaper against flesh.
The taller shape moves closer. Words float toward me, meanings slipping away before I can grasp them. A question, perhaps. Concern.
I need to speak. Need to know. Need to find him.
"L-lu..." The sound barely forms, more exhalation than word. I try again, forcing air through my damaged throat. "Lurok."
The name emerges as little more than a whisper, but the effect is immediate.
The tall figure freezes, then surges toward me with fluid, powerful movement.
A massive form leans over me, blocking the light from above.
I blink furiously, trying to bring details into focus.
Silver scales. White hair. Pale eyes that seem to glow in the dim light.
A hand engulfs mine completely, scaled fingers gentle despite their strength. The touch anchors me, gives me something solid to cling to while the rest of the world continues to blur and shift.
"Serin." His voice cuts through the fog with startling clarity, deeper than I remember, rough with emotion he doesn't try to hide. "Thank the Ancients, you are awake."
I try to speak again, but only manage a weak cough that sends fresh pain lancing through my chest. Lurok's grip tightens fractionally on my hand, his other hand moving to support my shoulder as the coughing subsides.
"Do not try to speak," he commands, but the harshness of his tone is belied by the gentleness of his touch. "Your lungs are still healing."
My vision clears slightly. Details sharpen just enough to reveal the sharp angles of his handsome face. The vertical pupils widen as they focus on me. There's something different in his expression, a vulnerability that changes his usually stoic features.
"Fetch the Threadborn," Lurok calls to someone beyond my field of vision, his voice regaining its commanding edge. "Tell her that her sister is awake."
Sister? The word penetrates the haze surrounding my thoughts. I blink, confusion rippling through me. Another memory surfaces of Leira volunteering in my place, being taken to Vessan-Kar while I remained behind with our father.
"L-Leira?" I manage, the name barely audible. "She's... here?"
Lurok's gaze returns to me, something softening in those pale eyes. "Yes," he says simply. "I promised I would take you to her, and a Talon always keeps his promises."
Lurok's thumb traces small circles against the back of my hand. The gesture is so achingly gentle, so at odds with his fearsome appearance, that warmth blooms beneath my breastbone, radiating outward like sunlight through frost.
His words anchor me, giving me something to hold onto as consciousness slips away again. Leira is here. Knowing I will see my sister soon is a lifeline, pulling me back from the edge of darkness. I try to squeeze his hand, but my fingers barely twitch against his scales.
"Rest," he murmurs, his voice dropping to a register so low it seems to vibrate through my bones rather than travel through air. "You are safe now."
Safe. The word wraps around me like a blanket. Protected by Lurok's hand holding mine. Sheltered with Leira somewhere nearby. Secure, despite everything that has happened, everything we've endured.
I focus on his face, willing my vision to clear. I blink hard, desperate to bring him into focus. My gaze traces the familiar pattern of scales along his jaw, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, and the shimmer that runs across his scales when he moves.
Something has changed in him. I can't identify it in my current state. There's an aloofness in his gaze. His presence now feels different, as if he occupies space in a new way. Before I can puzzle it out, footsteps approach rapidly from my left and Lurok's attention shifts.
"She is here," he says, his hand still firmly wrapped around mine. "Your sister comes."
I turn my head toward the sound, the movement sending fresh pain radiating down my neck. But I don't care. Leira is coming. After everything, the separation, the torture, the near-death in ash, I will see my sister again.
Exhaustion pulls at me once more, threatening to drag me back into darkness. But I fight it, clinging to consciousness with stubborn determination. I have come too far, survived too much, to miss this reunion.
I hold onto Lurok's hand like it's the only solid thing in a world gone soft at the edges.
The form rushes to my side, smaller and quicker than Lurok's massive presence. "Serin!" The voice cuts through my haze. Familiar, beloved, and impossibly here.
Leira’s hand finds my free one, fingers intertwining with mine. "I leave for five minutes to fetch water, and you decide to wake up?" she says, her attempt at lightness betrayed by the trembling in her voice.
"I told you she would wake today," Lurok rumbles from my other side, his tone caught between smugness and relief. "Her strength returns."
I try to focus on my sister's face. I blink rapidly.
Shapes sharpen incrementally, colors separating from the blur.
Leira's mahogany hair tumbles forward as she leans close, the tips brushing my arm.
It's shorter than I remember, wilder, with strands of copper catching the light that weren't there before.
"You're really here," I manage to whisper, each word scraping my raw throat. "Both of you."
My gaze shifts between them. My fierce, impossible sister and the naga warrior whose silver scales gleam in the gentle light.
They couldn't be more different: Leira's human angles and contained energy, and Lurok's massive serpentine form and restrained power.
Yet they bracket my cot like matching sentinels, each holding one of my hands as if afraid I'll drift away if they let go.
"Of course I'm here," Leira scoffs in her typical bravado as she wipes at her tears with her free hand.
"You think I'd let you have all the adventure?
First, you run off and save a wounded naga, then you traverse the Ashlands, then—" She breaks off, her voice catching.
"You nearly died bringing a warning that saved hundreds of lives. "
I shake my head weakly, unable to reconcile her words through my lingering fatigue. "I just wanted to find you," I whisper. "To warn... everyone."
"And you did." Leira leans closer, pressing her forehead briefly against mine in a gesture of intimacy we've shared since childhood. Her skin feels cool against my feverish brow. "You did."
For a long moment, we simply breathe together, my damaged lungs struggling to match her steady rhythm. Lurok remains silent, but I feel his thumb tracing gentle patterns against my palm, his presence a solid anchor on my other side.
My vision continues to clear, allowing me to study my sister more carefully.
She wears naga clothing. A wrapped tunic of deep green that shimmers faintly in the light, adorned with silver threads that echo the pattern of scales.
At her throat hangs a pendant I've never seen before, a coiled serpent carved from stone that seems to glow from within, pulsing with amber light.
Leira's fingertips rise to touch the pendant as she notices my gaze fixed upon it. "Emberyn," she says softly, her thumb tracing the contours of the stone. "The serpent stone Varok placed around my neck during the Crimson Bond Ceremony."
Crimson Bond. The words transport me back to my father's study, to nights spent hunched over a forbidden naga tome, its spine cracked from age, pages smelling of aged leather and secrets.
I'd trace the illustrations with trembling fingers while glancing nervously at the door, heart racing each time the floorboards creaked.
My eyes widen now as understanding dawns.
"You and Varok," I whisper to Leira. "The blood bond is real.”
A soft smile transforms my sister's face, gentler than any expression I've seen her wear before. "Yes," she says simply. "It's real."
My sister looks different, transformed in subtle ways that add up to something profound.
Her face is thinner, more defined. Her eyes now hold shadows that speak of things I didn't witness.
A small scar splits her right eyebrow. The changes go deeper than physical marks.
There's a certainty in her posture, a stability.