Page 385 of Elemental Becoming

Sweat and blood.

Smoke and battle.

For a moment, my mind drifts somewhere safer. Somewhere warm. I think we’re home. His arms are around me in bed instead of on a battlefield. It must be morning instead of the aftermath of war.

My eyelids grow heavier with every passing second. Maybe I can close them.

Just for a moment.

“Dammit, Amara!”

Thane is yelling my name, but it sounds like it’s coming from underwater. Muffled. Distant.

A hand smacks my cheek. Again. And again.

Gods, that’s annoying.

“Stop hitting me,” I mumble, the words coming out somewhere between a whine and a slur. My tongue feels too big for my mouth. My jaw refuses to cooperate.

Everything keeps drifting away. I force my eyes open.

Smoke-gray eyes and dark hair fill my vision. Familiar . . . but wrong.

This presence is smaller.

I squint.

Rowena.

Her face hovers above mine, smeared with ash and blood.

One hand is already raised, ready to hit me again. I groan and fling an arm upward. The back of my hand catches her shoulder. Rowena stumbles back a step, blinking in surprise. Then she straightens and nods once.

“Well,” she says dryly, “she’s still got enough fight in her to hit me. That’s encouraging.”

“For all the Elemental gods, Rowena!” Thane shouts, his voice raw with strain. He turns away from her, tightening his hold on me. “We have to move. We have to fly. Now.”

My vision swims again. The edges blur. The world narrows.

Calryx’s roar cuts through the haze like a blade, sharp and impossible to ignore. My vision clears just enough for the world to snap back into focus.

And then I hear her.

“Virelya!”Her voice crashes through my mind.“You are stronger than that black poison. Fight. Fight now, Spiritborn!”

The name strikes something deep inside me.

Not just a name.

A truth.

A reminder of who I am.

I fight and claw my way back toward awareness, forcing my breathing to steady and my vision to focus. The world drifts in and out, blurring at the edges, until my eyes finally find his.

Thane.

He’s looking down at me, his face tight, his jaw clenched, every line etched with fear he’s trying desperately to contain.