CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A SEARING PAIN COURSED from Night's back through her entire body. For a terrible moment, she was locked in rigour surrounded by a void. Without light...without darkness. Her body frozen, all except her eyes, which flew open as she tried to banish the emptiness and the sensation of power being ripped from her nerves, like a thousand red-hot needles being shot through her body. She drew a ragged breath in and let it out with a shudder.
Wiggling a toe, she found she could move, and sat up, running her hands over her abdomen. Her back ached, and she wanted to blame the overly soft bed. But oily black, phantom feathers fluttered at the edge of her vision. Her eyes slid a millimetre to the right, but so did the flicker. They weren't real. She let out a slow sigh. Not anymore.
