[THIS STORY WILL BE TAKEN DOWN ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2024]
He had hunted me, captured me, and locked me in a tower.
Season 3 'Of Crows and Thorns'
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While in RISING, Tabitha discovers something peculiar that may assist Nelle in her plan to escape the...
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People were moving all around me in waves of shock and confusion.
Văduva hunters pushed through the Crowther warband, jostling others as they stumbled close. Startled cries rose above the commotion, calling urgently for Petra. Jiao was bellowing, "MEDIC! MEDIC!"
But it was all white noise. The world had faded away into a snowy haze of smoke and all that remained was just me and Mela staring at one another with round eyes shining with terror.
This was all my fault. If I hadn't moved, Mela wouldn't have been hit.
There was a morbid part of me that recognized that Nelle's distress had saved my life. The crossbow bolt would have ripped right through my chest, and a direct hit with a bolt cursed by Skalki surely would have killed me.
My friend's panting breaths came as fast as a charging freight train. "Gr-Gray...?" The bloody fingers she had wrapped around her throat clamped tighter as a sudden convulsion of pain twisted and buckled her chest. The godsawful sound of her wail of agony shook me out of my shocked stupor.
OH GODS!
Mela...Mela...Mela!
My knees buckled as I went to drop beside her.
And then...
Nelle.
A brutal rush of desperate need slammed through my body, locking my legs rigid and punching the breath from my lungs. Its violence was as powerful as a hurricane beating ocean waves to skyscraper heights. The world around me darkened at the edges as something ancient, savage and wild, writhed and howled, hammering at my heart. At my bones. At my very soul. Threatened me with a vicious snapping of fangs. Roaring at me to go to Nelle, now, now, now!
I barely saw Mela's body shuddering on the stone ground by my feet.
I was vaguely aware of Sirro's power whipping outward to wrap around the Gestelt bolt and tear it from Yezekael's corpse.
All I thought of was Nelle.
All I saw was Nelle.
All I needed was Nelle.
My little bird filled my mind's eye. My imagination spun an image of her staring back at me like she'd done when sodden earth had given out beneath her feet and she'd fallen from the cliff. Pale hair whipping around wide gray eyes, lips pallid and shaking, forming my name.
Panic trembled across my cold skin.
Nelle went silent inside my head, beneath my flesh. So quiet. Almost as if she'd left me.
No, no, no...
I dug deep, diving into the dark recesses of my being, searching frantically for those threads of moonlight stitched with sunshine that bound her to me. Where are they, where are they, where are they?
