A Touch of Light (The Ashes of Avarin, #1)

by Thiago Abdalla

“I’m not an Earth-Breaker, Mansa! I’m not the—” “I know. I’m the one who’s kept your gift a secret, remember?”

Nasha was still shaking her head, thoughts racing. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t control the curse. It hasn’t gotten any better.”

ladder.” “You’re

Root now, too.”

Five shall be chosen to enter the Ronar clan. Five—”

then sprinkled some kind of dust over the pit, and the fire danced with renewed hunger.

I’m dead. We’re all dead if I touch that. Adda raised her stone high. “Initiate Devu.”

She plunged

the thin slice of ruin-stone into her chest, melding a sliver of Vedyr’s heart into her own. It would have killed a normal person, but Lynn felt no pain. She’d found her Bond: she’d found Vedyr. She’d become a Sentinel.

He’s lost everything because of you, Alren said.

Lynn gritted her teeth, pushing Alren’s voice to the back of her mind and focusing on the approaching house of the Seraph.

The knot in Lynn’s gut twisted and grew cold. The Ever-Tree at Baywater Temple was not the only one tainted. Had the Madness gotten even to the trees?

“Abbot Orwen is unavailable, I’m afraid. I am Priest Talbot.”

Abbot Andral presides over the House of Farkhul, and he has little time for favors.”

Some things just have to be done, no matter the wanting of them.

“Reports say around a thousand strong. They’ve overrun the ports, and their . . . disease seems to be spreading, pulling the people into their frenzy. Milsport’s had the worst of it. Its people have

The Legion was rebuilt to fight this threat. I can handle things myself. Tell Ashford to ready his men.

The Pontiff raised an eyebrow at him. “I think you have earned the chance to speak of whatever matter troubles you, my boy.” “Myrra. The Dakhran princess.” Adrian’s back stiffened again. He hadn’t said her name out loud since she’d died.

“I am Anaya,”

“After the Proving, then. I hope you understand the gift that is our trust, Warden. Do not squander it.”

Something hit her head, bringing her mind back for half a breath, long enough to see the man in front of her. What was his name?

Nasha could not imagine how she’d deal with Adda. I will not kill Bahar.

Nasha’s mind teetered. She was past the tingle on her skin.

Her vision grew brighter and brighter until she could see nothing but white—but there was something else. The contrast of emotions swirling around her was clear, like different colored lines, all fighting to weave their way into her. Her eyes followed them until they fell on a cluster of woven lines that seemed to shine brighter than the others.

Nasha bounded towards her, the energy she’d just absorbed making her incredibly fast. Faster than she’d ever see anyone move. The strength in her legs pushed her forward,

and the wind rushed past her, howling louder just as she barreled into Shai before the initiate touched the obsidian.

None seemed noticeably different, but she knew she’d used them, consuming their emotions. Maybe that was the path to surviving this, tales be damned. “You’re not dead,” she said. “Their Warden. They say he’s brutal. He’ll kill us all,” Zima said. “He won’t,” Nasha said. “I’ll kill them faster.”

Searing tears streaked down her face, and cold hands grasped her heart. They squeezed tighter with every beat, making it colder and colder, until it was nothing but a shard of burning ice stabbing at the inside of her chest.

I always knew you’d be back. Let us never be apart again.

She touched her hand to the Ever-Tree and pulled on the Bond. She wasn’t giving anger to Vedyr this time: she was taking it. It flooded into her, burning hotter and hotter, heightened by the Tree.

“Nasha, for all that is right, save him! Save him!”

“You’re a priest?” Adrian couldn’t keep the surprise out of his tone. “Your accent . . . . It’s . . .” “Azuri, my lord Light, but I’ve been in the dark for so long, I’m surprised they left me even that.” Adrian raised an eyebrow. “An Azuri priest, claiming to be an emissary of the Seraph—”

Adrian took it, displayed it around to the crowd once more, then drank. He closed his eyes with a smile on his blood-stained lips. So this was what it felt like to have faith. He couldn’t blame the people who believed in the blessings—the

The Light stands in no shadow.

You don’t deserve this. You shouldn’t be here! You’ll bring death upon them again.

“They will. That’s why we’re heading through Hagun lands.”

“General,” Ferrin said. He looked fully recovered from their escape. “Don’t call me that,” Lynn said. “This is temporary. I won’t be responsible for you out there. Pull what you did last time and I’ll leave you to die.”

“Inspiring,” he said, breaking a smile. “Wouldn’t use that particular speech with the troops, though.”

She fell straight towards the airship, mace side aimed at the deck, her limp arm using Vedyr’s strength so she could grip the polearm with both hands, while the griffin streaked past her in a blur. She fell like a star out of the sky, muscles still strengthened by the Bond. Lynn gripped her weapon tighter moments before she smashed into the deck. Her mace opened a hole in it, and her body followed. She ripped through the wood, broken pieces cutting at her arms, the pain of the impact coursing through her but not slowing her down. She shot all the way through, splitting the great wooden beast in half where she’d sliced its underside. It groaned and fractured and fell out of the sky. Lynn fell, eyes closing, giving herself into the arms of the night. She was slipping—close to her limit, even

Blood holds ties.