Extraits

Whyborne’s body heaved against my grip—and his eyes flew open.

“Griffin,” he said between gritted teeth.

“Yes,” I said. God, what was happening to him? “Come back to me, Ival, please.”

He blinked rapidly—then suddenly his eyes burned with arcane fire, and I nearly jerked back from the shock of it.

“Can you see me, Griffin?” he demanded in the voice of something ancient.

I tightened my grip on him. “Yes, I see you, Ival,” I assured him. “I’m here.”

“I found you.” His fingers scrabbled at my wrists. “I saw you. Broken, perfect, beautiful, fractured, Griffin, do you see me ? Do you see me; do you see me?”

“Yes!” I dug my fingers into his shoulders, desperate that he hear me, that he understand. “I see you !”

I cupped Whyborne’s face in my hands. “I see you,” I repeated, since he seemed fixated on the idea. “I see you, my dear.”

“Yes.” His eyes drifted shut. “You’ve always seen me. That’s why I brought you home.”

“Silence,” Creigh snapped. “You forget who is in command here. I shall decide what use to make of Dr. Whyborne.”

Ival laughed.

It was a strange sound, nothing like his usual reserved chuckle. His whole body jerked, and then...And then he burned.

It was nothing anyone else could see, but my shadowsight revealed the rush of magical fire. It started in his fingertips, touching the earth beneath which ran the arcane line. The black-clotted scars were stark against his skin...

And then the black began to crumble, to flake away, replaced by blue fire.

Marian let out a cry, almost of pain.

Creigh frowned, not yet alarmed. “What is he doing?” She glanced back at Marian—then seemed to realize something was truly wrong. “Stop him this instant!”

“Stop me?” Ival asked in a voice like something ancient, something that lay within the earth and the sea. His body convulsed, and he coughed, expelling a cloud of black dust.

The rust, burned to ash.

“Stop me?” he repeated, louder this time. “Do. You. Know. What. I. Am?”

He surged to his feet, his movements slightly jerky, as if he didn’t quite fit his own body anymore. When he turned on us, his eyes blazed with blue fire even in my ordinary sight. Creigh let out a gasp of shock. “Seize him!”

“Do you know what I am?” he howled in that ancient voice. The cloth above his scars began to char into ashes. “I am the fire that burns in the veins of the world! I am the maelstrom made flesh!” He dropped into a crouch, slamming his palm against the barren earth. “How dare you touch me, filthy parasite?”

The arcane line exploded in my vision, forcing me to look away. Power howled through the field, and I could feel it against my skin like a blast of hot wind.