Storm of Shadows (Lumineers 1)

CHAPTER 5: A BLACK PRISM

Steiner hissed, gurgled. His eyes rounded. He glanced between the dagger and Tabby's face, gasping and sputtering, not quite believing. But he didn't scream.

"I'm sorry," Tabitha Grey said, shaking her head, "but you've involved yourself in something bigger than I can handle." She wasn't really sorry. This was purely business. Though she would miss their games. And she did enjoy seeing his surprise. There was satisfaction in that.

She held firm, keeping the dagger in place as his handsome features transformed into desperation. She could have pulled it out—killed him faster. But some sick part of her enjoyed watching him struggle, watching him die.

His mouth opened and closed. "But...your father," he hissed, clawing at the sofa, clenching his hands into fists, doing nothing to stop her.

"What about him? He's the one who gave me to the Spectrum. He turned me into this."

"I...I know...who he...who he is—"

"Stop!" Her chest tingled, mind tumbling into confusion. "You can't possibly know. You're lying." But it was there, in his eyes as they began to glass over. "Tell me," she hissed, twisting the dagger deeper. "Tell me!"

But it was too late, Steiner was beyond speech. She was losing him. And with him, perhaps the one thing she had chased for most of her life. An explanation.

Everything the Spectrum taught her fled. She spared a glance at the ring on her finger—one single glance of desperation—before white light shot from the prism straight into Steiner's chest. She ripped the dagger free, exchanging it with light as it filled the incision, pushing the blood back into his body.

But his face was deathly still. And his breathing slowed and stopped. It...it was too late. She was too late. He was too far gone, and she would be no closer to knowing. No closer to the real monster in her life.

Steiner's words came back. "Always so close, only to come away empty handed." Was this what he'd meant? Unwilling to give up, she maintained focus, encouraging the light to sink deeper into the tissue between his ribs, pushing the blood back in, knitting his skin together, closing the fissure in his lung.

A familiar throbbing filled her head as her fingers twitched and fluttered, guiding white where it needed to go, repairing the blood vessels and the damage she'd done. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours. Her brute focus chipped away at her mental stamina, shard by shard. A familiar migraine formed and then pounded against her skull—light sickness. She ignored it—kept working.

Light wasn't supposed to do this, to heal tissue or stop bleeding. No individual color could. Not red, not indigo, not even violet. But in white, she had found a way. And trained herself in secret, pouring over medical texts in Chroma's library. This. This was her best kept secret.

Nit's voice was like a hand, pulling her from a chilly abyss. "He'll live, Tabby. He'll live." It reminded her that she wasn't breathing. And that's when everything came crashing down around her.

"Oh, Light!" she breathed, glancing around and back to Steiner.

What had she done?! Why had she saved him? More importantly, what would this cost her?

"You did what anyone would have done when someone targets a weakness."

A weakness. Steiner had targeted her greatest one. Her father. But she could no sooner take back what she'd done—no sooner kill him again. Not now.

His body lay sprawled on the couch, unconscious. She felt for a pulse. There it was. Weak, but growing stronger. A gentle current of air came from his nose. The last vestiges of glowing white light faded from his skin, absorbed by the tissues of his body. The wound had closed completely and disappeared, leaving behind a smear of blood and a rip in his robe.