Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) by Intisar Khanani

the landing. I’m desperately aware that my shoulder rests ever so gently against one of the tentacles. They aren’t moving either, though. They’ve gone strangely calm. In the sudden quiet, I can hear the mage’s boots thudding across the roof above me. I wonder if the beast can hear them, too, or if it can feel the pounding of my heart through its skin. Or perhaps hear the same voice that’s in my head.
    Hysteria bubbles up within me. I clamp down on it ferociously, make myself breathe slowly.
    The rippling limbs shift, the talons leaving huge gashes as the creature retreats back down the hall. I curl in on myself as a tentacle beside me lifts, but the thing apparently can’t see me here, and must not feel me, for the dry, scaly arm slides past and retracts through the window.
    More silence, so overwhelming it fills my ears and laps at the edges of my mind. Where’s the mage? The beast?
    Wait here, counsels my invisible helper. Am I losing my mind? Have I somehow cobbled together a guardian from the people of a past I no longer remember, a conglomerate of voices to scare me witless when I most need to keep my thoughts clear? Or maybe it’s someone who knows how to survive murderous mages and impossible monsters. I press my palms to my ears, because even though the speaker makes the silence easier to bear, I don’t want to hear him again. I’d rather listen to the over-loud sound of my breathing, the rush of blood in my ears.
    Think. Which way should I go? Which way will be safer — up or down? I’d better move, because dealing with two enemies at the same time is much worse than just one. I sit up, taking stock of my body. Everything hurts, but nothing feels broken or sprained. I release my ears to run my hands over myself, checking for cuts I haven’t noticed, some terrible damage my brain might have failed to report to me. My ribs ache, and so does my left hip, but beyond that I seem surprisingly unscathed. My pack appears to have protected my back. I reach for the dull oval of my glowstone.
    The building shudders. The mage shrieks, the sound of his terror cutting through the air. Three great talons curl through the open doorway above me, slamming into the high ceiling and tearing through it. I dive off the stairs as shattered stones tumble down the steps, a scream lodged in my throat. Tentacles swing overhead, curling around the edge of the floor and digging into the walls.
    The mage cries out again, words that have the sound of old magic, though there’s nothing here to fuel them. But there should be — sunlight filters through the dust and debris. At least it should have some power left.
    Run, the voice in my head orders.
    Wait, I respond, and reach a trembling hand out to the sun. I strain with all my senses, reaching out past the tips of my fingers, but there’s nothing. So impossible. There has to be something . I of all people should be able to touch the fiery potential of sunlight. With my face tilted up and eyes closed, I search for the force that must be there.
    And then I find it — a huge spidery web of magic drawn together at a central mass, pulsing with power, spreading tendrils over the roof of the building, moving and stretching. The beast.
    I step forward, concentrating on my vision of the creature. In my mind, it glows in the sea of darkness above me, the innumerable tentacles coalescing in a central body. I see its eyes, round and disc-like, its great beak-like maw nestled at the center of its tentacles, edges sharp as blades. Strands of magic outline each joint, each scale, as if the creature were made solely of energy before being given physical form. The filaments pulse with magic that flows freely along the beast’s limbs, the whole in perfect balance.
    Except for a single thinner strand where one of the tentacles meets the creature’s body.
    I hear a faint whoosh and the bright burst of light I saw before passes above me once more. With my mage sight, I perceive it as a small ball