Chapter 41
Auryn came back to awareness mid-step.
Her limbs were trembling. Her skin was clammy, hot with fever. And yet, her body moved without her consent, drifting through the quiet marble halls of the upper Lattice like smoke curling on the air.
The world dimmed around the edges, and her vision rimmed with gold light.
It was not sleepwalking. Not quite. Her feet carried her on a purposeful path—unseen, unchosen. Somewhere distant, she could hear her name echoing across the Bond.
A sudden shape blocked her path.
Lu’ma.
The Attendant was pale, her hands trembling, eyes hard as sharpened steel.
'Your Radiance, can you see this Nameless?' she signed, fingers and arms frantic. 'Please…please answer.'
“Lu’ma?” Auryn blinked, the haze receding. “What… what happened?”
'Your Radiance walked,' Lu’ma signed, 'not like in sleep. Your Radiance spoke in a strange tongue. Your eyes—gold.'
Auryn looked down at her hand. She was gripping a rolled scroll so tightly that the end had punctured the soft flesh of her palm. Silver blood welled around the edge. It was the Writ from Shu’Khan.
Memories flashed. The Vesper Seat. The cloying scent of Sahtra wrapped around her like chains. Heavy. Mind-numbing. And his eyes. Those eyes closing in, pressing closer. His vile breath against her skin.
She shuddered.
What had happened after that?
She couldn’t recall moving, leaving, running.
Beneath her skin, her fever still burned, festering and itching like a rash.
“I was with…” Her voice faded. She licked her dry lips. “The Sovereign Flame.”
A pang of dizziness assailed her.
Something deeper stirred, worming its way out, trying to twist and break free. Auryn dropped the scroll, wrapping her arms around herself.
Kail…can you hear me? I need you…
Nothing. Only silence.
A shift behind her eyes, like a veil pulled aside by wind.
Strings wrapped around her limbs. Her body grew numb, disobedient.
Something forced her to turn, and though she screamed against it, her feet moved, stepped, skidded.
Her body walked the other way, even as Lu’ma signed to ask where she was going.
One by one.
Step by step.
"Silari,” she said aloud, the voice not wholly her own. Her lips moved, but not by her will. “My Silari.”
It was the last thing Auryn registered before darkness descended once more.