Last year, I got the opportunity to read and review a fabulous fantasy novel, Duskfall; and now I have the exciting chance to share an extract with you all from the sequel, Dark Immolation. I am super excited to read this book and can not wait to get around to it- definitely be some point this month, so watch out for my review.Hubb worries about his brother, Darb. Darb has fallen in with rough company, rougher than either of them is used to. They have always enjoyed the occasional smoke of tark leaf, or even a hit of devil’s dust when they can afford it. Darb has been spending more and more of his time, and silver, on such things. Darb has even told Hubb that he’s tried hero. Hubb has not asked Darb how he’s been able to afford hero; the drug is the most expensive thing, measure for measure, that Hubb can imagine buying. Now Darb owes hard men hard money, and Hubb has no way of helping him. Between his wages as a gaoler and his time spent bouncing at the Trundleback, he barely has enough to support either of them—
The woman jumps from Hubb’s mind, unable to listen to his thoughts anymore. She jumps into the person nearest Hubb, and keeps jumping again and again.
—Huri can’t believe he’s still in this bloody dungeon when his parents should have bailed him out long—
—Grante wishes he could tell stories like his father—
—wonders whether her mother noticed her throwing up this morning—
—can’t wait to get home to play with his newborn son—
—watches the people around her, hating them—
—thinks the Lords’ Council shouldn’t—
—waits for her husband—
—sees how sorry—
—doesn’t realize—
—loves—
—herself—
—no longer—
And suddenly the woman’s mind travels far away. It is a sensation the likes of which she has never experienced; it is a sense of traveling a great distance and looking at things from a distant perspective, or perhaps the opposite, traveling far inward, moving in so close on things that they become completely different. She finds herself in what looks very much like the night sky. She thinks she is floating, but she can’t be sure. Millions upon millions of tiny lights, looking for all the world like stars but of infinitely different colors, surround her on all sides. She sees varying shades of white and gold, countless others of red, blue, green, purple, orange, and other colors she can’t fathom.
She looks down at herself, sees her hands and her feet, her body, but she is no longer clothed in the rough, reeking burlap that she has worn since the first day of her imprisonment. Instead, she wears the dark leather clothing Kali the assassin gave her, tight-fitting and sleek, in a memory outside of time.
The woman takes a step forward and her foot lands on an unseen surface; she can still see millions and millions of the tiny star-lights below her. Ripples of light echo away from her foot, like multicolored ripples from a stone tossed into still water. She takes another step, light waving away from where she treads.
In between the stars is the blackest of blacks, a true nothingness that reminds her of what it is she fears, the only thing she fears. Hello? she shouts, but her mouth does not open, nor does air move through her lungs. Is anyone here? Can anyone hear me? She wonders, for a brief moment, if this is death, if they have killed her, after all.
As soon as the thought enters her mind, she knows that is not this. While she is alone in this space, she does not feel alone. The lights around her radiate
meaning. No, the death she fears couldn’t be this forgiving. The death she fears could never be this connected.
But, through the connectivity she feels, she does notice something dark on the horizon. A shape, moving towards her. The shape looks to be a giant, looks far, far bigger than the woman herself, and she feels fear. She takes a few steps back, color and light rippling with each footstep, but the shade continues to advance.
What are you? the woman asks, her voice timid within her own head, but the shade does not respond, if it hears her at all. It only presses forward, growing bigger, larger, blocking out a multitude of the small star-lights. The shadow grows, and the lights dim and fade. Fear grips the woman’s heart, wraps its sharp claws around her, and she closes her eyes, wanting to be anywhere but facing this shade.
And, just like that, the woman returns to herself. She feels the familiar pull of her own body. She opens her eyes, and she is in the dungeon, the orange glow of torchlight leaking through the bars of her cell door. She is once more alone.
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