#meliara

“All the warning I had was a metallic klingg! and then red-hot pain blazed from my ankle up to my skull and closed my consciousness behind a fiery red wall for an immeasurable time.

The first thought to penetrate was a desperate one: Don’t scream, don’t scream. My breath rasped in my throat as I struggled up. My nose stung, and I sneezed—I had landed facedown on a sprig of stingflower.

I ran my fingers lightly over the fanged steel closed around my ankle, whimpering, “Got to get it off, got to get it off…”

Why had I refused to touch them, to learn how to disable them?”