Panting, Duvan got his bearings. Where was he? Was he actually safe? Yes, seemed to be for the moment. Good.
Where’s Slanya? he thought.
Abruptly, dread filled him. His flight to safe ground had taken him away from the campfire. Slanya was far outside his protection now. With the plaguelands erupting so close, she was sure to be exposed. And that much exposure could easily kill her. He needed to get back.
He needed to get back now.
After Duvan disappeared, Slanya instinctively moved closer to the fire, not for warmth but a need for protection. She knew that the fire could not protect her from anything in the spellplague storm, but it felt safer.
Spellplague lit up the air around the camp. Like a spiderweb, strands of magic hung glowing in the air. The small cocoon that had been their camp grew smaller and smaller until Slanya felt the universe coming apart around her.
Chaos.
Tiny filaments of shimmering magic sliced through the air and the ground and the haversacks. And Slanya. In their wake they left a vortex of randomness. There was no pain as they cut through her, only the sensation of dissociation between her mind and her body.
The pain only came in the aftermath, in the wake of turbulence caused by the crystals. And when it came, it started small-a pinprick on her shoulder and a tiny burn on her toe. But then there was another and another, each small, but adding to the others until she was besieged with a thousand pinpricks, ten thousand tiny burns.
Duvan would return. She had never seen him so angry, but she felt strongly that he would come back, that he would not leave her alone. Although even with his ability, what could he do against anything this intense? She did not know, but his companionship would be a comfort now.
Slanya had been trained to focus her mind, to use the power of her thoughts against material pain, and she tried to use it now, tried to concentrate to keep the unity of her body and mind. But in the wake of each filament, the onslaught of pain made it impossible to focus, and her mind grew disoriented.
The elixir would protect her. Gregor’s concoction would keep her alive through this. She had to trust him.
She did trust him. Didn’t she?
The last segment of her right pinkie finger spun away like a tiny fleshy mote. She watched it in silent fascination. This time there had been no pain when the churning magic had severed it from her hand. And as she looked down now, she wondered in amusement at the blood.
So unpredictable. So incomprehensible.
Screeching leather on steel filled the air, and Slanya was suddenly upside down, floating. How was it possible? It was as though the storm had picked her up and was examining her like a trapped insect before squashing her. Slanya found herself floating toward the campfire, which had grown to the size of the monastery funeral pyre. Blue mist and white fog burned gauzy sheets across her vision.
Was it her imagination or did she smell burning bodies? An intricate weave of palest blue gauze blanketed the camp, permeating all things. Slanya could not help but breathe it in-inhale disease and exhale fire.
The rational, objective part of her mind knew that this was too much exposure. Pilgrims to the changelands tried for the briefest of touches-a kiss of spellplague, an oblique lash of blue fire.
But this … this was like bathing in it. Drawing it in, spellplague permeated her whole being, and she could not run. She could not escape or withdraw. She had to endure, merely endure the choking and the disintegration.
The campfire’s yellow and red flames belched black smoke as they beckoned to her. Give in, they said. Abandon reason.
Slanya listened. Why not? She had lost, so why not embrace the changelands? Twisting in the air as she floated, Slanya danced. Whirling and spinning and throwing herself in writhing, acrobatic circles, Slanya took in the pain and the chaos. It was the true power of nature, and she could not force it to make sense. She felt her mind unhinge, and she did not care.
If Kelemvor meant for this to be her time, then she would celebrate.
Slanya watched, detached, as she reached into the fire with her maimed hand and moved the flames. Her arm lit up and with amusement she waved it around in her dance. The entire camp was ablaze in glorious yellow and red, with constellations of tiny blue electric balls unraveling pale strands throughout Slanya’s personal sky.
Abruptly, her world went dark, and Slanya felt herself falling … falling.
Was death coming?
She wondered if she should be afraid. Most people were afraid of dying.
In fact, Duvan was the only person she’d ever met who did not fear dying. Where had he gotten to?
The truth was that at this moment, Slanya had no fear. Something told her that she was ready, that she had prepared for death, and that Kelemvor would have a place for her in the City of Judgment.
Blackness and silence filled her senses until she knew no more.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Slanya!” Duvan yelled into the swirling darkness. He forced himself to sprint, back toward the campfire. Fear of what he would find clamped down on him as he ran. Swirling wind and dust pelted him with needle sharp fragments of stone. Pale blue threads lit up the night around him like ball lightning, itching at the periphery of his sight.
Duvan sped back the way he’d come. Or so he thought. It seemed to be taking too long to find the camp. The changelands were tricky and shifting. Rule number one was to never separate. He shouldn’t have left the fire.
But she had made him so angry. Nobody can understand what it was like to lose a twin like that. If he’d stayed with Talfani, maybe she’d be alive now. It was his fault that Talfani was gone.
Just as it would be his fault if something had happened to Slanya.
Duvan slowed his frantic, headlong crashing through the swirling darkness. “Slanya!” he screamed. “Slanya!”
But no answers came through the howling wind. No voices reached his ears, save the growling, mocking laughter of the storm.
Maybe I’ve lost her too, he thought. Maybe I’ve given her to the storm.
Ribbons of blue fire seared the air around him, but none touched. In the flashing, eldritch light Duvan caught sight of red embers and the square shadows of two backpacks in the blackness.
He ran toward the fire, stumbling over a dark lump. “Slanya!”
She lay motionless and silent, curled into a fetal position on the rumbling ground at his feet.
“Slanya?” he gasped. “Slanya, can you hear me?”
She said nothing in response, but he saw that her body started making gentle rocking motions. “Alive,” he breathed quietly. “Alive.”
But when he saw the web pulsing inside her like veins of blue light, he gasped. Not again, he thought. This is not happening again.
Duvan had lost one soul under his care to spellplague, and it had devastated him. It had, in fact, defined his life. And even though he knew that to be true and knew that he should move on, he could not simply shed his guilt and his responsibility. His failure had led to Talfani’s death, and now it would result in Slanya’s.
No, he told himself. No, it would not.
“Slanya,” he said, not sure if she could even hear him. “I’m going to get us out of here if I can. If we stay here you will surely die, and I won’t let that happen.”
The gentlest hint of a nod from Slanya indicated that she’d heard him. He took quick stock-she looked physically whole. There were no major wounds he could see. There was blood coming from her right pinkie finger where it had been cut at the last knuckle.
Duvan grabbed a bandage from his pack and strapped it around her finger. It would help stop the bleeding, at least. That was the only part of her condition that he had any treatment for.