Page 143 of A Courage of the Chosen

Her veins turn onyx, spider-webbing across her olive complexion in thin streaks of death, and shadows coil around her protectively as sweat trickles down her forehead.

Rachel pants beneath Lorna’s magic as her new Dorche powers are dragged fully out, growling through gritted teeth as the whites of her eyes turn black, until they’re the bottomless pools of inky misery like that of the Brollachan.

Her forearm is the first bone to break. Followed by her shin.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Brodie thunders when something much bigger snaps in Rach’s leg.

“Forcing the change,” Lorna grits out, winded under the strain of what she’s channeling.

One by one, every bone in Rachel’s body snaps with her transition, each fracture a knife through the hearts of the people around her.

Rachel’s feet become talon-tipped, elongating into blackened, scale-covered paws. Her back bunches upward, the discs of her spine poking through the cotton shirt as, piece by piece, she’s stripped back and remade into something new and foul. She hisses, her teeth flitting between pearly white, and inky canines designed for tearing into flesh. The transformation crawls over her like a disease.

When only her head remains unchanged, Lorna barks her instructions at me. “Get ready.”

A final surge of energy explodes out of her, and Rachel tips her head back to unleash a mighty screech that makes me grateful this part of the palace is so barren.

Rach’s Dorche magic shimmers around her, a rippling curtain of pain, and I search for the perfect opening.

Lorna tried to describe it to me, but said I would know when the time was right. My magic would sense the impending danger and react to it.

Balled in my open hands, my light waits.

Dread spirals in my gut, the need to run fisting through my chest, while Rachel screams and roars, and shadows spill from her open mouth as the last of the shift creeps into her face.

The dark side of my magic squirms at the sound, both drawn to it and recoiling at the same time. It doesn’t seem . . . natural.

“NOW!” Lorna shouts, at the same time my magic snaps.

My light cocoons Rachel, and I channel it into a layer that slithers through the tiny gap created, as the Dorche magic takes the remaining little pieces of Rach that remain.

The moment it slips between my friend and the power stealing her away, I feel the iciness of her shadows, and the warmth of the woman they’re holding hostage. Like she’s still there, trying to fight her way back.

Twisting my hands, I pry it away from her. I think of it as minuscule pieces of string that are tied to her every nerve, vein by vein, that I snip as I gather the shadows into a tight sphere, encased in brilliant light. Her screeches turn into screams as I tear and tear and tear until it’s done.

The room falls silent, save for the crackling of the imprisoned Dorche magic that I have to wrestle with. It’s poking and prodding through my defenses to get back to her.

“Destroy it,” Lorna pants.

“I’m . . . trying.” It was easy to destroy Raghnall’s magic when it had been expelled from him, but Rach’s power fights me the entire time. “I . . . can’t . . . hold it.”

Brodie is focused solely on the woman trembling on all fours on the bed, her hands awkwardly bound together where they take her weight. “Rach, baby? Can you hear me.”

A tear-stained face lifts to meet his gaze, and despite the thick blood trickling from her nose and ears, my heart soars. There’s no ring around Rach’s eyes.

But the elation is brief. Snatched away as it all comes crashing down.

“Kill me, Brodie. Kill me, please. Please,” Rach sobs.

“Don’t say that. You’re gonna be okay.” Brodie’s voice cracks.

Rach shudders, and what she says next is the final blow to us all.

“I won’t.”

I lose the fight with her Dorche magic, and it breaks free of the light prison I was keeping it in. It hovers briefly, before darting back toward her with unerring precision.

It seeps into her pores, and she gurgles as it slips down her throat, before collapsing into a heap on the mattress.