I’ll honor the weapon by mastering it just like all my ancestors did before me. I’ll learn the lessons waiting for me in the grain of its wood and the composition of the blades. I have no doubt I’ll become so much more than I am under its guidance, and pure gratitude washes through me.
Little by little, the heat recedes, and I feel my malleable body harden. Seconds pass, and a deep shuddering breath flows in my lungs. When I blink, my transition is done, and I dash away the tears that had slipped down my cheeks.
I carefully take a moment to feel the weight of my weapon in my hands, and then I easily send it away, just in case someone comes to snoop. I wrap up this new, powerful part of me and hide it beneath my skin, biding my time until the moment I can make Morax feel the arc of my blade across his soul.
“Whoa. That sure was somethin’,” Medley whispers, and I look over to find her kneeling in front of me.
“Did you melt too?” I ask, the question sounding oddly silly, and yet there’s really no other way to put what just happened.
Her gray eyes widen, and she brings a healed hand up to her chest. “I can feel you, Sable,” she tells me with a tearful gasp, patting just over her heart. “I can feel you and Delta where you should have always been.”
A tear escapes her eye, and she bows her head reverently, her hand over our connection like an extra layer of protection. I nod, knowing exactly what she means, only for me, they were always there in my soul. But the connection is stronger now. I can feel the bonds that braid us together as one. Nefta’s wards may have tried to block us from each other, but we’re reunited now, and there’s no way Delta didn’t feel that, wherever she is.
Medley gasps and her eyes widen in surprise when they snap up to mine. “The blackness. I can feel it now too.”
“You can?” I ask with excitement, because just as she says that, I reach out in my mind, and I can feel it too. It’s like a calm wave, ready to move where I need it. “Try to practice with it,” I say with budding hope. “See if you can cocoon yourself.”
A small smile curves her lips. “This is crazy. It’s right there, so easy to use,” she says in a rush, and I notice her gray eyes darkening. “Yeah, there it is. I can—”
Before she can finish those words, she suddenly slumps over. “Medley!” I reach out and catch her before she can hurt herself, my arms extended through the bars. Panic pumps hard through my veins as I lay her on her side. I call her name quietly as lifeless dark gray eyes stare back at me. Terror takes over, and I check her pulse, beyond relieved when I feel it steady and strong in her neck.
What in the world just happened? It’s like someone just flipped her off switch.
And then it dawns on me. This is what I must look like when I’m wearing my darkness like a cloak. She looks like someone just turned her off, because that’s exactly what happened. I realize I probably should’ve warned her about the paralysis part that I usually experience when my dark cocoon kicks in.
I quickly move into Medley’s line of sight where her head is pressed against the stone floor. “You’re going to be just fine,” I reassure her. “This is what happens to me too. You can’t move or feel, but it wears off,” I explain. “We’ll have to figure out a way to protect ourselves while still allowing us to function. This pause mode we seem to do isn’t as effective as we need it to be if we’re going to use it to get out of here. But I bet we can learn how to change it now that we have full control,” I tell her as I brush hair out of her face.
I feel bad that I didn’t warn her about the shutdown part, but I’m elated that she was able to do what I did. Hopefully that means she can make herself impervious to Morax like I can.
I accidentally leave a smudge of blood on Medley’s cheek from where I cut my hand open, but before I can wipe it away, it soaks into her