The Apple Throne by Tessa Gratton Page B

scream I recognize—
SorenSorenSoren
—surrounding me, encasing me. It explodes from my back, and my mouth is open, too—screaming, too.
    It hurts! It’s never hurt before. I bite my lip, but the pain is like jagged metal under my ribs, cutting up up up and out in all directions.
    Spinning.
    Red.
    Fire.
    I break open.

FIVE
    A
strid Astrid Astrid
.
    My name. I follow it, coming to wakefulness in a tight cocoon. Arms bind my arms, a mouth against my ear. Dull cold seeps through me. I can hardly move, my bones frozen to the earth.
    “Astrid.”
    I moan, but softly.
    Amon says, “You went bat-rag starking mad. I grabbed at you, and you attacked me.”
    The memory is dull, thick and slow-moving as sludge. I remember wild dark threads of scarlet winding around me, tearing me open, the heat and frenzy.
    It was Soren. I
felt
him. My seething has always been visual before. I’ve seen people and places,
seen
and
dreamed
the paths of destiny, not felt.
    But that was Soren. I know him, and he was bursting with hot fury.
    Berserking madness.
    I suck air through my teeth, and it’s so cold my jaw aches. My seething shows me possible—likely—futures. The next two minutes or two months or two years. It is nothing outright surprising to seeth of Soren caught up in his frenzy. That is what a berserker does. The only question is
when
it will happen.
    But I
felt it
. I was trapped in the seething. That isn’t supposed to happen to experienced prophets so easily. I didn’t go far enough to lose myself.
    I blink, opening my eyes to Amon’s worried face and the glare of sunlight piercing through the trees. “Oh, gods,” I whisper. “I’m sorry, Amon. It was—his frenzy. That’s what berserking feels like.”
    Tears burn the corners of my eyes, falling hot enough to steam against my frigid cheeks. I told Soren to embrace it. It was just chaos magic; it was just dancing, seething, power like mine. But that is not what I felt. I felt devastation and a hurricane of hot, sucking power. Rage.
    That is what Soren holds inside of him.
    My skull is scourged, my throat parched. My intestines are tied in ship knots. I am so grateful I’ve eaten no food.
    “Do I need to slap you again?” Amon asks darkly. He is not happy at all.
    I’m cradled in his lap. I owe an explanation, but all I long for is to cry. With horror and relief, both. I seethed, but it was
that
. I touched my power again, but only to lose myself in some future pain of Soren’s.
    I fumble at getting onto my feet. Amon cusses and helps me. I sink against his side so wearily he transfers me to a tree. As I cling to it, he gathers up my coat and the runes, shoving them into the velvet purse. I open my mouth and wheeze, wanting to say,
Stop, wait, let me see what the runes say
, but I’m too exhausted. My knees shake, and I press against sticky evergreen bark. I am so out of shape for this, for the berserking. I am gutted and raw.
    Amon grumbles to himself as he works. There’s a long double-scratch weeping blood from his neck. I did that.
    The bark cuts into my temple. I taste blood in the back of my throat, too.
    With two swift steps, Amon is before me. He picks me up, and I grab his shoulders. He swings an arm under my knees and carries me back up the side of the mountain.
    The blue van waits on the pullout, my passenger door hanging open, a tinny beep reminding us we abandoned it poorly, with the keys in the ignition. Amon settles me gently into the seat, slams the door, and goes around to the driver’s side. I watch, able to move little but my eyes. All the shadows sharp and dancing in the wind.
    When we’re closed inside the van, Amon turns toward me, shoves the rune bag at my feet, and takes my jaw in one hand. “You’re no goddess,” he says in a low voice.
    White snow-light surrounds us, barely tinged golden from the thin winter sun. I pluck his fingers off of my face like counting
loves-me, loves-me-not
petals from a flower.
    “But that,” I croak, “is