Bloodwalk - James P. Davis [8]
Her muscles ached as the magic grew, but she continued concentrating for as long as she could. Waiting and praying, she fought the slow return of frustrated rage. Nothing. Silence. She began to draw a breath, abandoning her prayer, preparing to scream and curse the fading, shimmering cloud around her.
But then it intensified.
The circle of magic flared brightly and closed on her, the force of its power hitting her full in the chest and sending her reeling to the steps of the altar behind her. She felt constricted and couldn't breathe as the vision rushed into her weary mind. Once again her heart hammered inside the frail cage of her chest. Blood rushed through her body as though attempting to escape, filling her with warmth and cold all at once.
She gasped for air as images formed before her eyes. Accompanied by tiny stars at their edges, she could faintly feel the pain they heralded, having hit her head on one of the dais steps when she fell. Visions forced themselves upon her mind, violent and powerful. Reeling, she watched, overwhelmed by this sudden return of the sight but unable to look away.
Storms ripped through the forests of her homeland and the lightning seemed to tingle down her arms and through her fingertips. She felt suffering and terrible pain, wails of unimaginable horror emanating from the trees as their trunks split and formed mouths full of splintered teeth. Blood flooded the forests as thunder rumbled overhead.
Nightmare upon nightmare flashed in her mind. Scenes of absolute terror assailed her senses, but through it all, Sameska was full of joy.
* * * * *
Sunrise was a brief affair the next morning. The light disappeared quickly behind dark clouds and cast the scene below in shades of gray. A cool breeze blew through the empty streets and unshuttered windows of Logfell, an unnatural autumn breeze more than a month early.
Morgynn stood on the shore, dressed in red. Eyes closed, she breathed in the bittersweet scents of plague and wild flowers as they mingled in the air. As the slight chill in the wind caressed her tingling skin, she was reminded of summers in Narfell. The cold at Bildoobaris, a gathering of the Nar tribes each summer, never quite warmed to even the early autumn chill of the Border Kingdoms.
Her left arm felt as if it were on fire, a sensation she reveled in as the last remnants of magic danced on her skin and slowly faded, leaving clean white lines where the scars of her spell had once been. She sighed, reluctantly opening her eyes to lament the spent incantation. She loathed the blank flesh on her forearm and absently rubbed her shoulders and neck with her right hand, mollified somewhat by the remaining swirls of magic carved there.
She pulled her tattered red robes around her and walked to the low stone wall that marked the edge of the little town. She couldn't suppress a growing smile as she stood staring at the empty streets, doors left open and abandoned merchant carts crushed in the chaos of her magic. For a moment she fancied herself the last being alive in all Faerыn, looking upon the sad remains of a world that no longer held any meaning. In that moment she felt the cold eyes of death over her shoulder, a silent companion that rarely stood apart from her, a memory that hid beneath all others.
Her eyes settled on a patch of ground near the town gates, stained in the browns and rusts of old blood, and wondered at the memories of these folk. She briefly imagined she envied them, those swift heartbeats on the edge of oblivion where denial meets the inevitability of nature's design. She shook her head and stretched her neck, almost a spasm of movement as she righted her thoughts. Refocusing, she turned away from morbid curiosity, banishing the imagined specter.
She followed the sounds of her followers, their chanting and prayers echoing in the silent and empty avenues. Speaking the languages of the infernal realms in deep, sonorous voices,