Change of Darkness (The Change Series Book 3) by Jacinta Jade (best new books to read txt) 📕

Her heart pulsed faster. Who was she? What was her name? She closed her eyes and cast a thought deep into herself, a desperate search for something to grip on to, a search for a lifeline in a sea of forgetfulness that was threatening to drown her.

She nearly missed it, so small was that glimmer of information in her otherwise bare mind. But one lone fact was indeed drifting there in the dark—a sound.

She held it tentatively in her thoughts at first, unsure what it was. She examined that sound in her mind.

And it seemed to ground something in her, make some kind of survival reflex within her grab on to that one word with a strength that could have torn down walls had she been able to project it.

Siray.

It meant something, she was sure of it.

She decided to repeat it out loud.

‘Si-r-ay.’ Her mouth seemed dry—had she ever spoken before now?

She said the word again, and this time it rolled more smoothly from her tongue, some other forgotten sense helping her along.

‘Siray.’

As if it were the wind that had held back a storm, as the word rolled off her tongue, her mind was hit by a barrage of images, and she felt her knees buckle under the mental onslaught.

A dark palace with glistening stone rose up in her mind. A training hall with shirtless males, a female with eyes that missed nothing, another female whose face told of hatred, and a battle …

She was a captive audience as a slaughter played out in a forest, as a red-haired female Changed into a black-and-silver creature and proceeded to decimate a small group of fighters.

The scene sped up, and now that same female bent over a barely breathing male on the ground, her hand emitting a soft glow as it rested against his neck—

Then her mind was cast forwards again, and she stood watching two dark shapes, one of which became a towering, dark-haired male with a flowing cape.

‘Change! Change now!’ he yelled.

The shouted words were a command to the tall horned animal that stood before the male, and she watched as the animal shuddered once, twice, then seemed to shrink in on itself …

To become the female she had watched initiate the earlier fight.

But something was wrong.

Back in her normal form, the female’s eyes didn’t open, and instead of straightening, her form merely collapsed, her face going blank.

No, not blank. Empty.

‘No …’ The male seemed to breathe out the word, but even though she seemed to be standing paces from him and the female, she heard each word perfectly as if he were whispering into her ear.

‘Wake up!’

The male’s sudden yell at the unconscious female startled her.

‘Siraay! Wake up!’

At those desperate words, her mind was released, and the scene that had been playing out before her disintegrated.

Siraay. That was her name. And she was a Lady of Xarcon.

She looked about her at the darkness that surrounded her on all sides and knew two things to be true.

Her name was Siraay.

And she was lost.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

LOST. It was hard to fathom, when Siraay now knew who she was, and remembered the events that had caused this.

She had tried to Change. Mere reaction, really, to the command Chezran had given her. But too fatigued, both mentally and physically, to focus, her mind had lost its grip on her true form.

And that was all it took, Siraay knew, for one to become lost.

To lose their mind.

To become a Lost One.

Her breath was coming faster now, as she realised what the surrounding darkness actually was. She tried to get herself under control, even as her hands shook slightly.

She attempted to quell her rising fear, by telling herself that she was a weapon and that she would find or fight her way out of this place.

It was working … until a cackle sounded from of the darkness.

Every hair rose on Siraay’s body as that high, cold laugh floated out from the black. She—or rather, her former self—had heard that laugh before …

Without realising it, Siraay began backing away, darkness pressing close around her.

Then the cackle came again … from behind.

She spun, her chest rising and falling faster now as she scanned the darkness. Nothing. She could see nothing.

She took another step backwards …

‘It’s only a matter of time.’

Siraay twisted, raising her hands to a defensive position.

The first thing she realised was that a patch of light, about the size of a small room, now existed before her. It wasn’t lit by any manner she could discern, yet still the space was illuminated.

And standing within that small space … Siraay’s own self peered back at her—the same red hair, blue eyes, and pale scars over the left cheek.

Siraay froze for an instant, the fear that her mind had fragmented searing through her before she finally managed to take in the clothes.

Her replica wore a Resistance uniform. The old Siray.

Her former self.

Siraay lowered her hands, but her body remained tense. ‘Trying to scare me, are you?’

The former Siray raised an eyebrow. ‘Scare you?’

Siraay jerked her head over her shoulder. ‘Running around in the darkness, laughing at me.’

Old Siray looked at her for a moment longer before her expression turned to one of understanding, then contempt. ‘You still don’t get where we are, do you?’

Siraay glared at her other self. ‘Oh, I know. We’re in my mind. And I’m guessing that all I need to do to escape this’—she waved her hands at both the light and the darkness—‘is to get rid of you.’ This had to be like the dreams Siraay still had on occasion, where the old Siray pushed her off cliffs or attempted to kill her in other ways, causing her to wake up in a cold sweat.

The former Siray’s mouth drew to one side in a smirk that the new Siraay could read quite well. She’d used it many times herself—on Pyron, to indicate her amusement at his ignorance.

She took a step towards the old Siray, fully intending on carrying out her threat.

But the