The Forgotten Light

33. Fairlight

She wasn't sure what came to her first - the clash jaws of the closing metal, or the sudden, acute pain in her left shoulder that made her drown again in nonexistence.

When she opened her tired eyes, she saw nothing in the pale light of the stone hanging high. All around was completely silent, completely dark.

Her stomach twisted into a knot, an unpleasant shiver ran down her spine. What had they done to her?

She felt so weakened, and on top of that she couldn't see anything in the dark, yet she never had a problem with it. Had they blinded her? No, she could see the faint light of the stone.

She leaned against the cold wall behind her back and touched something cold and heavy on her shoulder. She groped for it with her fingertips, looking for some sort of latch by which the object held onto her arm, but it appeared to be completely smooth. Like a bracelet. She tried to slip it off, and then her breath shuddered from a silent sob. The thing was piercing her skin, cutting into her bone. She felt the blood drain from her face, her lips tingling.

She wasn't sure if the world suddenly spun around her, in this darkness it was hard to tell.

She didn't know when her head hit the stone floor or how much time had passed when she started thinking clearly again. The slightest movement made her feel sick. She didn't have the strength to get up, so she sat down.

Where was she? How long had she been sitting there? Maybe they locked her in there to die slowly?

After the wall of mirrors collapsed right on the audience, she didn't expect anything else.

She sat alone in the darkness for what seemed like an eternity. She had plenty of time to think about her friends. Had they reached Sedona yet? Were they safe? If Usain was there, from their story he would surely know that Ivy was her. Eventually they would know she was alive.

And then what? Would they come to get her?

Fairlight shuddered in terror.

They couldn't do that. She would never call them there for help.

Until now, they thought Phoenix was dangerous. It didn't even cross their minds that San Diego could have been a hundred times worse.

She curled up on the hard ground and closed her eyes. In that deep darkness, it seemed like ages had passed.

She wondered if her soul was already floating somewhere between heaven and hell. She felt so empty, so powerless, as if nothing held her to the ground.

For a long time she had been trying to create something, something the smallest, simplest, like a keychain in the shape of the state of Arizona, which she suddenly longed for.

Every time she tried to focus her thoughts on it, her head began to hurt excruciatingly, and she even lost consciousness.

Distraught, she finally gave up.

She didn't think it was possible, but no other sensible explanation came to mind - it was gone. She had lost the strength she had tried to hide above all things. The power that could defeat the Beings. Moreover, she was so terribly tired that her head fell back against the rock and her heavy eyelids drooped, brushing her cheeks with her eyelashes.

She clenched her hands weakly into fists, warm blood began to flow again from the newly opened wounds.

All that was left was her brave heart, which was beating weaker and weaker.

Invicta had taken her power away.