The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson [123]
She pushed off, using the slanted stone fot leverage, hurling herself into the boy. They crashed together to the floor as rocks rained down on them.
"Meisha!" Kail shouted, but his voice was lost in the hail of battering stones.
Meisha heard Talal screaming in her ear. She felt the impact of the stones against her back, smashing ribs and bruising flesh.
"No," she whimpered, when Talal's screams abruptly cut off. She felt the boy go limp in her arms. In Meisha's mind, all she could see were Shaera's dead eyes, all she could hear was the prayer to an unknown god the girl had whispered in the dark. Talal had no one to watch ovet him. He was alone in the datk.
Shaeta's blood-covered visage… Varan's ruined eye… Laerin's blood on a demon's claws.
Something inside Meisha broke. Without thought or hope, she called the fire.
Flame blazed from her eyes, her mouth, from every wound torn open by the falling stones. Meisha's pain disappeared, replaced by raw burning-a heat that should have incinerated her body but did not. The fire did not even singe her clothes. Instead the flames shielded her, casting away the falling stones or burning them to smoking blisters before her eyes.
Meisha had never experienced this kind of telease. The power within her swelled, and for the first time in her life, she felt nothing could harm her. The fire consumed all, taking thought and emotion and turning the world black inside her mind. Safe in the flaming cocoon, she could exist as one with het element and never have to feel the pain of the world again.
Is that what you want?
Dantane's words echoed in her mind. "Yes, oh yes!" she screamed, crying tears of black flame. Let me stay this way, always.
"Meisha!"
She heard the voice near her ear, frightened but insistent, distracting her from her paradise. Meisha tried to ignore it. The fire beckoned her, seductive and soft, a lover's touch that banished all her memories. She did not even recognize the voice calling het.
"Meisha."
Hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her and sending waves of cold through the inferno. Meisha shuddered at the icy touch.
"Go away," she snarled, hearing the flames in her own voice. "Leave me be!"
The hands shrank back, and for a moment Meisha thought they would rerreat. Then she felt the slap across her cheek, sharp and brutal. The hands shook her again, harder.
Meisha reared back, prepared to burn her attacker to cinders, when she heard the choked cry of pain. The voice spoke her name again, this time in anger.
"Meisha-stupid, flame-kissing Harper-have done!"
Meisha opened her eyes. The flames drained out of her body, leaving her weak and quivering. She collapsed on top of Talal, who squeaked in fresh agony.
"How many ways are you trying to kill me!" the boy screeched, pushing her off and scrambling away.
"You're alive," Meisha said wonderingly. "The cave-in… 1 thought it had killed you. It killed her-Shaera."
"Is she all right?" came Kail's voice from somewhere above her head.
"Babbling something, but I always knew her mind was addled," Talal said. The boy snorted, but his eyes were filled with concern when he looked down at her.
"How?" Meisha asked.
"Your fat bulk shielded me from the worst of it," the boy said, grinning. "Got a nasty bump, though." He touched his head and winced. "Your back's going to have some pretty scars on ir."
He reached under her arms and felt for broken bones as Kail and the others approached.
Meisha caught Talal's wrist and saw the blistering burns on his palm. Her eyes filled with misery. "I burned you," she said bleakly. "I could have killed you."
"You could have killed us all," said Kail, as Garavin knelt beside her and muttered a prayer. "But you didn't."
Meisha looked at Dantane. She felt the dwatf s healing wash over her, closing the worst of her injuries. Talal was right, she thought. Some of the scars would never heal.
"I felt the powet," she told the wizatd. "The element. I was fire. I wanted it so badly."
Dantane nodded, understanding, but Talal scoffed. "Showing off was what