The Strength of the Few (Hierarchy, #2)

by James Islington

After a few seconds, I sense the faintest of pulses. Unnoticeable if it were not so close. Right behind my eyes. And I realise that I am holding my head in my hands. Dawn’s light is burning its way down to me as I hold my left arm up in front of my face. Turn it back and forth wonderingly. Slowly, disbelievingly, flex the fingers as they glint silver in the scything rays. I can feel my hand. The weight of it is gone. It’s not just the water. I can feel it, in the same way I could feel my spear when I used the nasceann. And yet, this is even deeper. Something more. I reach across and loosen the painful leather straps that bound the arm to my shoulder. It does not fall away. I’ve imbued it. I know it’s true, can feel its certainty even as the impossibility of it staggers me. Just like in Fornax. Some distant instinct rather than knowledge, a reflex that I shouldn’t have and yet somehow do. The image of the arm locked in my mind.