Page 57 of The Ashborn

I don’t know. I wasn’t there when he got stabbed. Only after.

Moira returned with Elowen, who carried a bag full of herbs and supplies. She’d left her rodents at home, and for that, Kienna was grateful.

“If things go sideways again, Elowen leaves immediately, understand?” Moira said firmly. Kienna agreed and stood from Tislin’s side.

Elowen approached, examining him. Kienna and Moira joined Danek. His fingers were beyond Elowen’s repair.

Let’s assume he was, Kienna replied to Connak. Would that have possessed him with shadows? Whatever had a hold of him destroyed Danek’s hands.

What color are his hands?

Black and blue, like a bruise.

You need to stop the spread. Can Moira cast a protection barrier?

Though exhausted, neither of them would rest, and Moira agreed by wrapping an orange ball of buzzing electricity around Danek’s hand, as they had all done for years in River Storm. The faint memory danced between them as a reminder of their cage.

Are his hands cold or hot?

Danek says both.

Damn shadows. Listen closely.

“Connak says we need to neutralize his hands. Something hot and something cold. Not too much,” Kienna explained to Moira.

Listen, I promise we will be there in two hours. Do this for me, and I can save them.

Moira was confident that they could both find heat, but the ice would prove far more difficult in the grand scheme of things.

“You can summon weather, too, I thought,” Kienna said.

“Barely, but I don’t have an energy source to pull from.”

“Pull from me.”

“What?”

Danek sat up. “Yeah, what?”

“Most of the time, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m begging you all to trust me.” Kienna scanned them both. It was an instinct within her, telling her she could share her energy with them. She didn’t know how, but she didn’t have time to question it. Her body—her magic—begged her to do this. “Your magic may be specified, but it comes from you, and only you. Moira proved that when she became the sun. She didn’t need it to be visible because it’s within her. Take the energy from me, please, and put an ice storm in Danek’s barrier. I’ll give him the heat.”

They shifted amongst themselves.

Moira placed her hand into the barrier, her other hand on Kienna’s shoulder. After a moment of pushing, she shot blue ice into the orb. Snow sprinkled, swirling around Danek’s fingers.

Danek nodded, wincing from the cold. “Now the heat.”

Kienna pushed her hand into the barrier, the buzzing of electricity shocking her wrist. She tried not to indicate her pain. Instead, she intertwined her fingers with Danek’s, but nothing came out. “I need someone to scare me.”

Moira jerked her head back. “Why? Remove your charm.”

“I won’t do that. I might kill Danek, but I can perform magic underneath it. I just need to feel something.”

“Danek losing his fingers isn’t enough?” Moira scoffed.

“Compared to those shadows? Probably not⁠—”

Moira didn’t wait for Kienna to finish. She summoned a cloud above Kienna’s head, a strike of lightning shooting out and jolting her in the shoulder. Kienna yelped out through the pain of her healing socket. Her hand lit up with a flame that flowed into Danek’s fingers.