The Crescent Hour ✓

Chapter 31. The Glyphs

Clara woke to the crackling of wood. The air was heavy with smoke. Fire. Her pulse jacked, ragged breaths spewing out of her mouth. She scratched her arms, a flimsy attempt at smothering the flames consuming her body.

Someone grabbed her wrists, pressing them to her thighs. “Open your eyes.”

She couldn’t. The light would burn her eyes. It would leave her blind. She had to get away from it. She had to find somewhere safe. With a choked cry, she tried to free her arms.

“It’s me.” The grip around her wrists loosened. “Open your eyes, Clara.”

She knew that voice. It had a light accent she’d often found pleasing. She did as told. Tamer sat close to her, his face lined with worry. Twin hilts peeked from his shoulders. He’d taken his scimitar.

 “Promise me you won’t hurt yourself,” he said.

She’d left long pink lines along her exposed arms. There had been a fire burning her body. No, not a fire. Light. What light? Tamer applied a small pressure on the back of her hands, startling her. She didn’t trust her voice so she nodded at him.  

He released her wrists then gave her a flask. “Drink it.”

She took slow sips. Cool water soothed the sting of thirst along her dry throat. She handed him the bottle. Tamer tied the strap below its rim it to his belt.

A ring of shadows circled the coliseum. In the center, a roaring campfire drenched the arena in orange. She was hunched against a wall in the arena, her lower body coated in a thin film of dust. Three beasts lay dead from the other side.

The length of her trousers had been torn from her knee to her ankle. Her left leg had been healed. No scar blemished her skin. She touched her shin, shivering at the memory of teeth sinking into flesh.

“Where are Rai and Eryx?” She patted her side pocket then remembered Tamer had also taken Rai’s gun before she had fainted.

“Probably in the hypogeum.”

She’d never heard of such a word. Rai and Eryx weren’t anywhere in the arena or in the rows of seats circling them. 

 “You were mumbling in your sleep.” Tamer picked a piece of wood and threw it at the fire.

“What did I say?”

“I couldn’t hear you.” He cocked his chin at her leg. “How are you feeling?”

She felt lost. Confused. “I’m fine.”

“The truth, Clara.”

“The truth…” The word sent a shrill of alarm in her thoughts. There was a tear in the blackness of her mind, a jagged gap wide enough to release scraps of images. Starless sky, black and hollow. Blinding light, white and fiery.

“Naaji’s entity spoke to me!” She’d been told something urgent, something she wasn’t supposed to forget. She searched for the memory, for that white light and black sky. The tear sealed shut like a flower closing at dusk. “I can’t remember it!”

Tamer reached for her shoulders then stopped himself. “Calm down.”

She squinted through the darkness in her mind. A blackhole had sucked away the vision, leaving a chasm that sparked a headache. She pressed the pads of her thumbs over her temple.

Clara wished Timothy was there with her. He knew how to fix things. Once, when she’d been eleven years old, she had thrown a stone at a bird’s nest by accident. She’d feared the mother bird would nip at her face and leave bald patches on her head.Timothy had helped her mould a nest from twigs and dry grass and settle it back on the tree. He had fixed her broken doll when it fell from her balcony prior to her twelfth birthday. And when she’d stolen all the bonbons in the kitchen a few weeks later, he’d taken the blame and gotten an earful from Josephine.