Into the Fire (The Mieshka Files, Book One) Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the hospital.
    “It’s not going to hurt, is it?”
    Aiden gave her an alarmed look.
    “No.” He hunched close to the console, eyes returning to the screen. She looked away, feeling heat rush to her face. Well, what did she know about planes? Or spaceships?
    He slumped back into the chair, watching the screen.
    “It’ll just feel warm. Won’t take long.”
    She tried to follow his example, settling against the chair’s rigid cushion.
    “Try to relax.”
    She watched the center screen. Buck and Jo had been replaced by a single string of words. A soft whir sounded overhead. The light grew warmer, touching her skin like a tropical sun. A warning about tanning beds slipped briefly through her mind.
    The light thickened. A dust mote drifted in front of her face, glowing. Data began to stream in on the screen.
    “Ah, there we go.” Aiden sat upright, watching his mirror of the data. From his pocket, he took out what looked suspiciously like a USB flash drive. A chart popped up, minimized to the corner, and was instantly replaced by a second one. At the bottom of the screen, she recognized the graph of a heartbeat.
    It looked a little fast.
    “Cool. So you’ve got magic, and…” He drifted off, squinting at the screen.
    The light continued to get warmer. It felt nice after the cold of Lyarne’s autumn. It heated her right down to the bones. Her eyes felt less raw and dry than before, and they drooped under the light. She smiled, wiggled down into the seat, and closed her eyes.
    The light pulsed like a heartbeat. Her smile faded. Something clicked above her, and her wrists pressed down on the chair's arms. She couldn’t move.
    Her eyes snapped open. The screen no longer raced with data. Instead, it said:
    HELLO, MIESHKA.
    She jerked upright—or tried to. Her back fixed to the chair, as if the cushions were a magnet for her spine. The pulse continued, beating into her bones. A curl of smoke lifted into the bright light. She wrestled against the armrests, staring at the words.
    “Aiden?”
    “Yeah?”
    She glanced over. He hadn’t looked away from his screen, which still showed a graph. The metal end of the USB drive gleamed in the console.
    A movement made her look back. The writing had changed.
    I WILL NOT HURT YOU.
    Something brushed against her skin like feathers. Orange lines awakened on her knuckles, sliding across the skin just as they’d slid across the black metal hull. They left a warm track. She felt them follow her arm, disappearing under the cuff of her sleeve.
    “I can’t move.”
    Aiden finally looked over. He stared at her, a small frown cutting into his brow. The heat traced up her neck and around her jaw, and his eyes went wide. He turned back to his console and typed a few flurried commands.
    Nothing changed. Heat sunk into her shoulder blades.
    He swore.
    The lines covered most of her body now. A glow rose from her cheek. Aiden scrambled out of his chair and made to grab her. His hand entered the light, and there was a sharp hiss . Fire snapped up his skin, and he snatched it away.
    The lines slid into her eyes, and everything went black.
    Sounds disappeared.
    There was no ship, no console, no Aiden. Just pure, abyssal black.
    She couldn’t feel her body anymore.
    She couldn’t hear her breath.
    Silence. Nothing. Darkness. A place without time.
    A tiny prick of light appeared. In this infinite place she couldn’t tell if it was in the distance and getting closer, or simply growing larger. Slowly, it shifted into the shape of a bird, red-orange wings beating against an unknown wind. Their sound was quickly swallowed by the dark.
    As it grew closer, she saw that it was a large bird. It had a wingspan wider than her arms, and its body was made of a deep red-orange colour. On either side of its tail, two feathers trailed like a peacock’s train, their deep ochre colour ending in an eye of yellow-gold. Its body seemed to move between solid and flame, blurring in parts. At the end of a long,