Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
FINLEY
The scream beneath my skin grew and grew, drowning everything else out. My thoughts, my breaths, even the thundering beat of my heart.
My magic was done asking. It was clawing its way out while I tried to hold it back. It ripped through me, blistering my skin as it bubbled and tried to surface.
“You have to take me down,” I told Hoshiko, afraid it’d burst out of me and harm him.
His wings batted furiously. “We’re almost there.”
But even with Hoshiko’s magic containing mine, it fought and raged, tearing through me as it demanded to be released.
Finally, he lowered his body, gliding us down quickly. Still, I wasn’t sure we’d make it. Before he landed, I stood atop his back, launching myself from him before my magic touched him. I hit the ground hard, tumbling to my knees and side.
“Finley—”
“Stay back.” I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, teeth clenching as a rageful wave surged from my core to my fingertips. “I can’t—” My voice cracked. “You need to get away from me.”
“No.” The single word shook the air as his magic wrapped around mine, easing the threads so they’d release more slowly.
It worked for a few beats until another surge hit, strong enough that neither of us could contain it. It didn’t simply take from me, but bled me, tearing through my flesh with boils that spread across my body.
My knees buckled. I saw them, the faces I’d sentenced to death. Their dying tremors echoed in my bones, their fading warmth bled into my veins. My skin burned as if I swam in flames, every inch of my skin blistering from my unrelenting magic.
“Hoshiko,” I choked out, panic clawing at my lungs. “If it turns on you—”
“It won’t.”
His magic reached to temper mine, but there was no stopping it.
“Trust me.” His deep voice came out tender and reassuring, and his certainty wrapped around my soul like armor.
The scream in my blood pitched higher. The air shimmered with heat and death and a coldness I only felt in the depths of my soul. The smell of scorched earth flooded me.
But Hoshiko was there. Unharmed.
He folded one of his mighty wings around me, as if to shield me from the world. Or maybe to shield the world from me.
My magic didn’t care who it touched. It never had. Yet Hoshiko remained unfazed and unafraid of the destruction inside me.
“Please . . .” But I didn’t know if I was begging him to leave or to pull me closer.
The torment inside me rose, and I pushed past his wing, stumbling and falling as I tried to make my way to the nearby forest and away from him.
“Finley, allow me to help you.”
“I can’t hurt you. I can’t—”
The storm broke. It was as if everything inside me tore free at once. Searing, shattering, and then empty.
My knees hit the ground, my hands nothing but trembling, blistered flesh. I couldn’t heal it. I couldn’t even stand.
Hoshiko bent low, and I forced my eyes to remain open to catalog every injury I’d caused him.
“You didn’t harm me, Finley.” His deep voice was somehow tender and reassuring.
His head brushed my side, and I tried to reach for him, to hoist myself on his back, but my arms wouldn’t lift.
“I’ve got you,” he said, his tone still gentle.
His magic slid around me like invisible hands, lifting me to his back. I sagged forward against the rise of his neck, the world tilting and dimming as I felt his magic begin to heal me.
The last thing I felt before darkness took me was the steady beat of his heart against my cheek.