“Five, four, three…” I didn’t wait, just pulled, the action rough and quick as the thing dislodged from my hand with a loud, wet smack.
It took all my willpower to keep the scream inside my throat, keep the agonizing pain hidden, and keep me safe from any other magical flying rats that were about. Every muscle stiffened in mind-numbing pain. My body seized and flailed in a need to stay quiet.
One swift move and my head slammed into the stone wall I sat against, a new pain erupting through my skull at the impact, but even that pain was not enough to compete with what now ripped through me.
Stomach spinning, I heaved, the smell of blood and vomit so strong I could barely breathe through it.
Balling up the hem of my shirt as best I could, I pressed it against my hand in an effort to stop the massive bleeding that was now flooding from the golf ball-sized hole in the center of my hand. I already knew it was pointless. The pain continued, blood flowing in rivers over my skin, pooling against my legs and the garbage I sat on.
Still, I could not feel my magic. I couldn’t feel the warmth. Nothing rushed to my hand in a mad attempt to stop the blood flow, to heal the ragged wound I had created.
If I stayed here much longer, I would bleed out.
I had to move.
I had to find Ilyan before it was too late.
Shaking, I attempted to place the shard of blade in my pocket, trying to focus on a world that was spinning and shifting before me. Everything shook. I shook as my body moved into what I was convinced was shock.
Pressing my weight against the wall, I leaned against it as I forced myself to stand, my eyes wide as I looked down the alley, part of me praying Ilyan would magically be standing there.
It remained empty.
At least there weren’t any rabid Vil?s, I supposed.
Using the wall as support, I moved back down the alley, my eyes darting every direction as I tried to get my bearings, praying I was on the right side of the river, praying I was close to the cathedral.
I couldn’t be that far away after what had happened, not that I remembered much. I remembered running, and if I was running then as well as I was walking now, I had to be close.
I was.
I was on Latenska, the long street that moved over the river and stretched into Old Town, which was less than half a mile from where I needed to be, from someone who could save me. I hoped I could get there in time, or Jos would probably find me in a few days, face down in a pool of my own blood, surrounded by Styx lyrics.
I ran, leaning against the wall, my hands clawing at corners and windowsills as I stumbled forward, keeping my pace as fast as I could, given that my legs still weren’t working right, and the added pain in my hand was making it hard to see straight, hard to think.
Everything ached, each step getting harder to think through, each step draining me. Worse still, all I could really see was red and black as the sun hovered above me, weird shadows moving over the street before me, and the steady drip of my blood as it fell against the street was loud in my ears. The rhythm of each drop perfectly matched the frantic pace of my heart.
I supposed I should calm down. It would ease the blood flow a bit, but it was an impossibility. It was all I could do to keep my brain focused on my destination, something that was becoming harder, my brain slowly shutting down with each step.
With each drop of blood I lost.
“Who needs blood?” I asked aloud, the words slurred as I turned a corner, the wide foyer of the cathedral opening up before me. The cathedral beyond the massive space was broken and smoldering as though it had been destroyed, as though they had been attacked. Staring at it, I struggled to get my mind to focus on what I was seeing, trying again to recall what had happened. I knew Ilyan’s barrier made everything look abandoned from this side, but that level of destruction was a little excessive.
Leaving the safety of the wall, I moved into the open space before the barrier, the same stretch I had run through before seeming as though it was as long as football field, the golden gate broken and looming before me, the dark stone looking more like a gateway to Hell than to safety.
With all I had done in this life, I would certainly deserve that.
“Ilyan,” I gasped, my voice broken as I took another step, my stomach spinning as much as my head was. Everything before me fell apart, black looming in and making it hard to see. “Ilyan,” I gasped again, my broken legs twisting underneath me as I spun on the spot, collapsing as the world continued to twirl.
Stars of black and red all mixed together in what my brain was trying desperately to interpret as a smoothie.
Oh, geez, I was losing it.
“Ilyan.”
My head made contact with the heavy cobbles of the courtyard with a slap, the plea reverberating in the cave of my mind, the simple word mixing with a scream that flooded the air.