Allyra didn’t allow her mind to dwell on the consequences—she set to work at once. She sat cross-legged next to Jason and closed her eyes, trying to still her mind.
Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium. Beryllium. Boron. Carbon. Nitrogen. Oxygen…
Jason had better be grateful that she was going through this effort to save his sorry ass, she thought darkly.
Allyra retreated deep into herself, sinking into the source of her Gift. It was pale and hollow, nothing but an empty husk, but she reached deeper still until infinitely bright light exploded through her mind, leaving it throbbing with power. She reached blindly for Jason.
Her fingers touched the wound on his leg, and the unnatural heat of his skin burned into her. In her mind, she saw his body broken down into a tapestry of colored threads, all woven tightly together. Green, yellow, red, and blue—every Element represented and present, pulled together by a silvery thread of life that only her Elemental Gift allowed her to see.
Jason flinched under her touch, but Allyra only tightened her grasp. She started to draw the poison into herself.
A gasp of pain escaped her lips unbidden as the poison flooded through her body. The Tigers roared in protest, fighting against her—fighting against the poison. Bile rose in her throat as more poison rushed through her veins. Every nerve ending lit up as a wildfire raged through her, leaving nothing but ash and bone behind.
Her vision tunneled, and she heard Jason moan softly.
She lost her grasp on consciousness.
* * *
Allyra woke up slowly. Her nose felt cold, but behind her was a solid bulk of warmth. Half-asleep, she turned and tried to burrow deeper into the warmth.
“Hey.”
She tried to ignore the voice, tried to tuck her head in and fall back asleep. Her body was bone-achingly tired.
Even as she chased the warmth, it drew away from her.
“Hey,” the voice said again.
Allyra felt a hand draw gently across her forehead, brushing away a few errant tendrils of hair. Her eyelids fluttered open.
Jason’s dark indigo eyes stared down at her, awash with concern. His face was drawn and his skin was devoid of color, but he was alive and awake. And most importantly, he was with her still.
“You’re alive,” she murmured, her voice hoarse and catching in her throat.
A wry smile broke across his painfully handsome features. “So are you.”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “It would appear to be so though the jury is still out.”
“Don’t ever do that again. You scared me half to death.”
She huffed out a small laugh. “You were more than halfway there already.”
“Don’t,” Jason said sharply.
Allyra opened her eyes at the seriousness in his voice.
“Don’t,” Jason repeated, his eyes boring into her. “I’m not worth it.”
She tried to sit up, a frown creasing her forehead. She winced in pain as the scar in her side throbbed, the Revenant poison seeming to have reawakened the wound. A cough wracked through her, and the bitter taste of blood coated her tongue.
Jason held her tightly until she was able to breathe again, and then he tried to lift her shirt. She made a halfhearted attempt to swat him away. “What are you doing?”
“Please, it’s not anything I haven’t seen already.”
Well, that was true enough.
Jason lifted her shirt, and Allyra shivered as the ice-cold air hit her skin. Her old wound came into view. Another shiver worked its way down her spine, this time at the memory of the Ancient’s blood red eyes boring into her as it thrust the jagged black blade into her.
The scar from the Ancient’s blade would never truly be invisible, but in the past six months, it had started to fade, slowly waning from an angry red color to a pale white. But now, with Revenant poison surging through her, it had turned back to crimson, weeping a few drops of blood as if the blade had cut into her days rather than months ago.
Jason’s eyes widened. “Your old scar, from the Revenant in the Between…”
Allyra nodded. “It must’ve reacted to the poison from the Revenant blade.” She pulled her shirt back down. “And now you’ll have one too.”
“It’s only because you’re such a sorry sight right now that I’m not going to bring up why I woke up in the freezing cold without my pants on…”
A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “Right, only because I’m such a sorry sight and not because I just saved your ass.”
His mood instantly turned serious. “Don’t, Allyra,” he repeated, “don’t ever do that again. I’m not worth it.”
She turned to him, her eyes searching his. “Why would you say that? You saved me. It’s only right that I save you.”
“Is that why you did it? Because you thought you owed me something?”
She’d leaped into saving his life without giving herself time to consider her reasons for doing it. She still wasn’t ready to think about it.
Allyra shrugged. “I don’t like owing anyone anything.”
He shook his head. “I’m not—”
She cut him off deliberately. “Can we stop debating whether you’re worth the effort or not? As much as I’m enjoying your sudden discovery of humility, the last time I checked, we were still in a race.”
“You’re hurt too badly. We should just wait out the storm.”
“Did you hit your head when you fell?” she asked sarcastically. “Humility and a willingness to accept defeat?”
She made to get up, but Jason stopped her, holding her down firmly. They stared at each other, gray eyes meeting indigo in a contest of wills, neither
