I snatch my hand away.
“Arlet!” Vann calls. His fingers brush through the hole again, but can’t reach far enough.
“I am all right, Vann,” I say plainly. I stare down at my hands—ribbons of black and silver smoke drifting from my fingertips, fading into the air. I had thought it was so strange that Arion didn’t have elemental magic. Now I know why.
“There it is,” Castien murmurs.
“What did you do to her?” Vann demands.
“Nothing she didn’t already carry,” Castien replies coolly. “You think she’s fragile? She survived curses, gods, and your lies. She’ll survive this.”
“Get away from her,” Vann retorts.
“If I wanted her harmed,” Castien says, stepping back, “you’d already be ashes.” He looks at me. “Listen, girl. The fire inside you is wild. It has grown. If you don’t master it, it will master you. If you wish to live through these trials, then you need to find a way to harness it by working with your tether.”
I stare at the writhing power, letting the new sensation calm my feverish skin. It is strange, unnatural. “I don’t know how.”
“This is why I have come.”
“I still don’t understand why you would betray Arion,” I demand. “Especially now that I know this connects me to him.” My fingers brush over my collar.
“I do not know what Arion’s goal is with you and that collar,” he admits. “But, as I said, we have a mutual friend who is interested in your survival,” he responds simply.
“Mrath,” I say sitting up straighter. “She obviously didn’t succeed in killing him before, so what happened?”
He hesitates, then shifts his shadows around us, as if he were locking in the sound even more.
“She was injured, but she has already started to make her way back. You should see her soon.”
My eyes widen. “Will she attack yet again? So far, she’s proven useless against Arion.”
“Right now, all you need to focus on is surviving.” Then his voice softens. “Close your eyes. Call the presence by whatever name you know.”
I obey, because something inside me already knows what to do. The dark behind my eyelids breathes, and something answers. When I open my eyes, a small flame hovers above my palm—black at its center, rimmed with silver light.
Since you asked so nicely, Cursed One says.
I feel Vann watching me, marveling perhaps. I don’t know what to do under his scrutiny.
“I can’t put it out,” I say, looking up. Slightly panicked.
“Yes, you can,” Castien says. “Command it. It belongs to you.”
I exhale. The flame flickers once, then shrinks to nothing.
Castien gives a single nod. “Good. ” He studies me for a long moment, his expression unreadable, then adds quietly, “You will be able to make it out alive.”
Before I can ask what he means, he kneels, drawing a slim, obsidian dagger from within his cloak. Its blade hums faintly with runes that burn silver blue in the dim light. I stiffen, ready to fight if he comes closer, but he only presses the flat of the weapon to my side—right over the bandaged wound.
“Hold still,” he murmurs.
The stone sears cold at first, then warm, the heat building beneath my skin until it floods through me. The pain dulls, then dissolves, replaced by something heavy and languid.
The smell of smoke curls through the air, and when he pulls the blade away, my breath catches. Somehow, the puffy, bright red torn flesh has knit together. The blood is gone. Only a faint mark remains, pale as frost.
Then he presses the dagger to the wound on my shoulder and hands me a vial to drink. A similar process is repeated, but I can almost feel the strength returning to my limbs. Unless, like themeager improvements from Thorne’s medicine, this is instant and potent.
“What did you?—”