But how the hell did I get home?
That odd buzzing heaviness no longer rode the air, but I was weaker than a pup and I doubted I'd have the strength to become Aedh.
Which left me with only one option—chance the gray fields, and hope like hell Azriel found me there before anyone else did. Not that the Aedh had any reason to be hunting me given the tracker they'd placed on my heart, but my father was still out there somewhere, and it'd be my luck that he would choose a moment like this to hunt me down.
I closed my eyes and took a slow, somewhat shaky breath that didn't seem to contain much in the way of air. As I slowly released it, I released awareness of the battle to breathe, the pain that shook me, and the myriad of wounds that washed blood down my body, and concentrated on nothing more than slowing the beat of my heart. Gradually that beat steadied, amplified, as the dark cavern began to fade and the gray fields gathered close. Warmth throbbed at my neck—Ilianna's magic at work, protecting me as my psyche, my soul, or whatever else people liked to call it, pulled away from the constraints of my flesh and stepped gently into the gray fields that were neither life nor death.
The Dušan exploded from my arm, her energy flowing, buffeting me as her lilac form gained flesh and shape. She swirled around me, her movements sharp, edgy, as her ebony gaze scanned the fields around us. Looking for a threat that came from within me rather than anything the fields might offer. At least for the moment.
Azriel, I whispered, and hoped it was enough. I didn't have the energy for anything louder.
He answered. The storm of his approach quivered through me, but I didn't wait for him. I couldn't. Blackness was beginning to steal through the gray, and I knew my strength was giving out. I had to get back into my body before that happened, or I might end up stranded here in the fields.
And that could be deadly. A body could survive only so long without its soul on board.
This way, I said, and fled, down through the layers of consciousness and into my flesh. Then the blackness overtook me, and I knew no more.
Chapter 14
Awareness surfaced slowly, as did the knowledge that I was warm and safe and—most important—alive. I smiled, but I couldn't seem to shake sleepiness or force my eyelids open, and soon I drifted back to sleep.
It was the aroma of cooking that eventually woke me. My nostrils flared as I drew in the tantalizing scent of roasting meat more deeply, and my stomach rumbled noisily.
"That," a familiar voice mused, "had better be your stomach and not a fart."
Tao, I thought with a sleepy smile.
Then I sat bolt upright in bed. Tao!
I stared at him. Rubbed my eyes and stared at him some more. Reached out and touched him. Lightly, carefully, like he was a mirage that might disappear at the slightest sense of movement.