Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,147

her mind—thicker and blacker than the darkness.

Like poison.

Like a weapon.

“I can stop you,” Sophie told them.

“We’d like to see you try!” they challenged.

And she would show them.

She’d show everyone.

“Sophie!”

The voice was new and not new.

Familiar but strange.

And much, much too far away.

But it called for her anyway, repeating her name over and over and over.

Growing more desperate.

“Don’t listen!” her enemies shouted. “Listen to us! We’re your endgame! And you will never be able to stop us!”

“YOU’RE WRONG!” Sophie screamed. “I’M THE MOONLARK!”

She dived into her consciousness, letting the poisonous darkness boil and bubble and burn around her.

But it wouldn’t be enough.

She needed to be so much stronger.

So she reached deeper.

Sank farther.

Past the walls around her heart.

To the reserves within.

Emotions so pure, so potent that there was no longer good or bad.

Only unending power.

Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.

No—she wasn’t Sophie anymore.

She was hate.

And love.

And victory.

And defeat.

And she was finishing this—once and for all.

Red rimmed the edges of her consciousness, and the darkness rose higher and higher, pressing against her mind, clawing out like a monster and—

“SOPHIE, STOP IT!”

The voice felt like a slap.

Or maybe she really had been slapped.

Her cheek stung and her breath was heaving and…

“Wait—where am I?” Sophie asked, feeling like she’d been dropped into a strange new body, and only parts of it were working.

She couldn’t see.

And her ears were ringing.

And her legs were so, so shaky.

And her head…

Her head was much too heavy.

She let it fall forward, and then every part of her followed—falling, falling, falling—until something squeezed her arms and dragged her back upright.

“We’re still on the King’s Path,” the voice told her, “so I need you to get it together.”

The sharpness of the tone gave Sophie the piece her brain had been missing.

Stina.

She was talking to Stina.

And this…

This was reality.

Everything else…

“What’s happening?” Sophie asked, shoving the lingering wisps of her nightmare to the back of her mind and trying to spot something—anything—to give her brain some focus.

But there was only the thick, endless black, and the more she stared into it, the more it stared back.

Looming over her.

Ready to devour.

“None of that!” Stina snapped as something squeezed Sophie’s arms again.

Hands, she realized.

Hands that were shaking her.

“Stop it!” she whined.

“Then stay awake!” Stina ordered. “I don’t think I can stop you from inflicting again.”

“Inflicting?” The word was a kick to the heart. “Did I—”

“Almost,” Stina corrected. “The pain knocked me out of the weird dream I’d been having. Something about unicorns and kelpies… and… I don’t really know. They were chasing me, and… it doesn’t matter.” There was a rustling sound like Stina was shaking her head. “Then I realized what was happening, and somehow I got my legs moving, following the feeling until I found you and tried to snap you out of it. I pulled your gloves off, but you still had those gadget things on, and I didn’t know how to work them. So I tried smacking you—”

“I knew it,” Sophie murmured, reaching up to feel her cheek—marveling that her arm and hand were willing to do that. It still felt like she was inhabiting someone else’s body—a puppet with ten million strings, and she didn’t know how to use any of them. “But… you stopped me in time?”

“I think so. I can’t see anything, but I don’t feel anyone in pain or anything.”

Sophie sank with a sigh, and Stina had to steady her again.

“Seriously, Sophie, I’m having a hard enough time—”

“You two shouldn’t be conscious,” another voice interrupted from somewhere beside them, and Sophie wondered if her heart was going to be permanently stuck in her throat from the shock of it.

But the jolt brought a new level of clarity to her brain.

“Nubiti?” she whispered.

“Who else?” the voice—Nubiti—asked.

And she was close enough now that Sophie could feel Nubiti’s breath on her cheeks as if her dwarven bodyguard was leaning in, studying her through the nothingness.

“You should’ve heard me guiding you,” she told Sophie quietly. “But you didn’t. No matter what I tried.”

Stina snorted. “Big surprise, something about Sophie doesn’t go the way it’s supposed to.”

“I guess I should’ve expected her reaction might be atypical,” Nubiti conceded. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re functioning so clearly.” Nubiti’s voice shifted, like she was moving to examine Stina. “How are you awake?”

“No idea,” Stina admitted. “I’m guessing it’s an Empath thing. I felt Sophie’s emotions spiking out everywhere, and they dragged me back—and be glad they did, because you’d be writhing in pain on the floor right now if I hadn’t. We all would. I’m sure your