Legions of Bone: Dragon Rider Book 3

Chapter 8: Lies of Truth

I hope you guys enjoy the chapter! I thought I'd make you guys happy and post a bit early. And I swear it isn't going to be this depresso the entire time. 

: )

Norah

 Norah wasn't supposed to be listening. But she wanted something solid to grasp onto when nothing felt real. This might not be real. It had happened last night as she talked to Bronn and Mor in the living room. It had taken her a while to get into the conversation, to actually find herself enjoying it. And then she blinked, and they were gone and Kaiden and a guard were at the table pretending to be oblivious and Etin was beside her, clad in shadows.

"Her body could give out any second," the doctor said, his voice low and crisp but muffled through the walls and closed doors. Norah had met the healer several times before, with his dark, peppered hair and thin lips.

"You're a doctor, you tell people if they have six, twelve months to live all the time all the time," Kaiden said. "Why can't you do it now?"

"This is different," Cody defended.

"If this were anybody else they'd be dead," the doctor continued. "Several of the issues she has now should have her incapacitated or insane. Factors that shouldn't be affecting her are and vise versa. There is no medical or healer precedence for this situation."

"So you have no idea what's happening to her?" Holland asked, his voice gruff from frustration.
"I do not." No hesitation, no edge. Just facts softened with sympathy.

Norah had heard enough. Her death was chaotic. It was unpredictable and uncontrollable.

She padded out of the narrow hallways that seemed to roll like waves beneath her feet. and into the giant living room. High, vaulted ceilings and grand windows looked out onto a barren, rocky plain that stretched endlessly.

"If anyone's coming," one of the guards had said. "We'll see them."

But Norah didn't settle in like the others. Maybe they saw what this was, maybe they didn't. But Norah felt like a fish whose owner moved it from a bowl into a tank. They could stick their hand in the water all they wanted while she could never leave the walls of her tank. Doctors, counselors, psychiatrists, every kind of person who might save a hopeless case came through portals. The Hollands left for work, calling the dark mage to help them disappear into an oval pit of darkness. Only she and the guards the Headmaster sent and could not leave.

For most of the day, at least one of the Hollands was reading and writing notes. Norah asked if she could help, even if she had to read the same sentence over a dozen times. But they had said no. She caught glimpses of laptop pages of a male god with claws and a tail and she saw peeks of books about the darkness. Norah had nodded and walked away, her anger beating like a low, steady drum.

She tried to remind herself that she had agreed to this, had even thought of it before Holland and Cedric brought it up. But that didn't seem to make the experience any less frustrating. She was bored and angry. She couldn't be privy to any battle plans or logistical information because her mind couldn't be trusted. Etin walked in and out of her head, plucking her memories like flower petals. Whatever she knew; Etin knew.

The days blurred together with only brief bursts of activity to mark the time. Holland and Kaiden had begun training her to use Etin's magic. They poked her anger, like prodding embers for flames. Taunts were thrown to stoke her, small shoves and punches - slow enough that even a novice could dodge - infuriated her. But she never let the darkness come, only tried to let a trickle out of the sea. It was counterproductive, Norah knew that, but every time she'd used that power it had been in bursts and the darkness was not kind to its victims. She could lash out and break something the healers couldn't fix. So Norah practiced late at night while a guard watched from the porch.