Chapter 3
The shriek cut straight through me.
My eyes snapped open, the pull of oblivion receding so fast it felt like it was draining out of me, spiraling away into nothing. As if even death itself fled from whatever waited in the dark beyond the trees.
Aedric sprang to his feet. His iron shortsword flashed as he drew it from his belt, raising it before him with both hands. His breath came in short, puffed bursts in the cold air. Steam rose from his skin, his body always so warm.
We both froze. Listening.
No.
No, it couldn’t be.
It had to be the wind, whistling through the bone-white trunks around us.
I held my breath.
Silence.
Aedric turned back to me slowly, staring at me with widening eyes, as if he were seeing a ghost. His blade lowered an inch.
“I thought you’d died.” His voice wavered, his face caught between terror and bewildered relief, as if he couldn’t quite believe I was still breathing.
“M-me too,” I stammered, incredulous.
The darkness had come for me fast, like ink spilling across my consciousness, drowning everything. But somewhere in the back of my mind something else had moved—a cool sweep, like a hand skimming the inside of my skull—
A second scream ripped through the forest.
This one was unmistakable.
I snapped upright, my gaze locked on the direction of the sound.
“Aedric…” I whispered.
“It can’t be,” he said, shaking his head as if trying to clear it. “The Bone-Wrought can’t have…”
And then I saw them.
They moved through the underbrush like shadowed nightmares. Jerking limbs. Bodies bent at impossible angles. Too fast. Too wrong. My stomach lurched.
Four of them.
Aedric lifted one hand from the knife, sparks dancing over his fingertips—flame flared for a heartbeat before guttering out, snuffed like a candle in a storm. He stared at his empty palm in disbelief.
“Aedric!”
The first Infected burst from behind a tree.
It lunged at him in a frenzy of gnashing teeth and hooked claws. A ragged bite mark gaped where its ear had been torn away. Black veins pulsed across its face and down its neck, bulging with Tharnyx’s corruption. Its eyes were entirely black—bottomless, mindless, ravenous.
Aedric spun, slashing across its torso, sending the creature careening backward into the Infected behind it. They toppled like broken dolls.
And then the fight descended on him in a rush.
Aedric bared his teeth and roared. The blade in his hand flashed like lightning as he drove the iron straight into one creature’s skull. It dropped instantly.
But the others came on.
Snarling.
Snapping.
Hungry.
Aedric fought, the shortsword singing through the air with every desperate swing.
The nearest Infected shrieked, a piercing sound that rattled my bones.
It lashed out with its claws, and Aedric caught the strike on his blade, severing the creature’s hand at the wrist. Black blood sprayed the mossy ground, but the monster barely reacted.
Instead, it recoiled quickly and paced sideways, clicking its rotten teeth together in a steady rhythm as it circled him.
The other two lurched forward from between the trunks, their movements unnervingly coordinated.
They darted in and out of Aedric’s reach, feinting, forcing him backward toward the ridgeline, his boots sending loose shale skittering.
Sparks showered from the edge of his blade as it struck bark, rock, anything except flesh.
He grunted with effort and frustration, his breath coming in short pants. They were tiring him out. Toying with him. Like predators wearing down a cornered animal.
This wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen from the Infected.
The fourth one turned toward me, a gruesome grin splitting its face as it limped forward, its movements sharp and unnatural. Its black eyes stared into me—reflective, silver-edged, wrong. Something cinched tightly in my chest.
Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to run, but my hand moved first, scrabbling along the ground beside me as it approached until my fingers closed around a fist-sized rock. The jagged edges bit into my palm as I clambered to my feet, my legs shaking.
The creature stalked closer, its breath rattling through the gaps in its ribs. Every step was deliberate, almost taunting, as if savoring the moment. Behind it, Aedric’s blade finally crunched through bone; around us, the forest seemed to hold its breath.
“Aedric,” I whispered, but the creature’s low growl swallowed the sound.
It leapt.
I screamed and threw myself sideways. Its claws tore through the air where my throat had been a heartbeat earlier. It stumbled, screeching, just as I spun and brought the rock down on its skull with all my strength.
Once.
Twice.
Over and over, until its thick blood splattered the ground, my arms, my face. The thing’s head gave beneath the blows, collapsing into a dark, pulpy ruin. The Infected crumpled at my feet.
Panting, trembling, I braced myself against the nearest tree. My legs barely held me.
Aedric cried out suddenly. I whipped around to see him stagger as two more Infected emerged from the forest. His chest heaved with exhaustion. They moved around him as he swung again and again, slipping just beyond the reach of his blade.
Panic surged through me. I needed to help him. I needed—
I froze, my eyes going wide as I suddenly realized…
The pain was gone.
I looked down at my left side, expecting to see nothing but scorched flesh. Instead, smooth skin met my eyes. Untouched. Whole. Glowing faintly in the strange light.
What…?
Had I healed? How? My mind spun, unable to catch on any logical explanation.
A sudden movement snapped my attention downward. Too late.
The Infected at my feet, the one I’d killed—the one with its skull battered—reached up and seized my ankle.
A strangled cry tore from my throat as it yanked me off my feet. Ash billowed around me as I hit the ground hard—yet the impact didn’t wind me. I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t even feel it.
The creature dragged itself over me, its skull reforming before my eyes as if made of liquid shadow. Impossible.
Its face hovered inches from mine, teeth bared, breath rattling against my cheek.
And then I realized—there was no smell.
No rot.
No decay.
No rancid stench of death.
Nothing.
Whatever this thing was… it wasn’t one of the Infected.
The silver of starlight caught in its black, orb-like eyes as they fixed on me, unblinking.
Starlight…? But there were no stars tonight.
A cold dread spread through me, deeper than fear.
“Rìan,” I breathed.
The creature went still, that awful smile stretching wider across its sagging, graying skin. It edged back a step, as if preparing to spring—
And everything changed.
The snarling, the metal striking bone, Aedric’s shouted breath—all of it vanished mid-sound, cut off so cleanly it stunned me. In its place came the ordinary hush of the nighttime forest: leaves whispering, insects buzzing, branches creaking in the wind.
And the monster above me was gone.
He stood in its place.
Pale skin like moonlit stone. Dark hair falling in a careless sweep across his brow. Silver eyes glowing brightly as they fixed on me, cold and cruel all at once. He wore all black, so dark he looked as though he were made of night and shadow.
Terror surged up my throat, deeper than anything the Infected had ever managed to stir.
I turned my head. Aedric was on his knees beside me, exactly where he’d been before, when I’d asked him for water.
His eyes were wide and unfocused, staring through the world instead of at it.
Every few seconds his body jerked, grunts slipping from his throat.
His fingers twitched against his legs, curled as if he were holding a blade.
Rìan still had him. In his mind, he was still fighting the Infected.
The cool presence in my own head withdrew—cleanly, suddenly—and agony slammed back into me. Heat ripped through my body as if I were being burned alive a second time. I tried to scream, but what escaped was an animal sound, something I barely recognized as mine.
My gaze fell to my arm. It was blackened again, burned almost beyond recognition.
Rìan loomed over me, arms crossed, his face tight.
“You’ve seen better days, Eidra.” His voice was velvet and steel.
An illusion… It had all been an illusion…
He nudged my uninjured side with the toe of his boot, then grimaced. “You can't seem to stay out of trouble, can you?” He straightened, his hands flexing at his sides.
“An Infected attack.” He gestured sharply toward the trees.
“I thought that might finally bring you to your senses. Awaken some instinct to survive. Yet here you are.” He looked back at me, disappointment settling over his features.
“Tell me, Eidra... are you truly so eager to die a smoldering pile of char?”
I couldn't even glare at him anymore. I could barely keep my eyes open.
“Any last words?”
“Fu… Fff…” I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think past the pain.
His eyebrows rose a fraction. He tilted his head, and that cool presence slid back into my mind. The agony eased—barely—pushed to the edges so my thoughts could gather long enough for speech. “Better?”
“F… fuck you.” My cracked lips split as I forced the words out.
“Ah,” he nodded. “Succinct.”
He crouched beside me, his silver gaze roaming over the burned side of my face.
“You hate me, Eidra, and that’s understandable. I have earned your hate. I tricked you, I betrayed you, and I used you. But it had to be you—and no one else. Only your magic, shaped by the Moiraithe, could release me. You were the only creature strong enough to undo what had been done.”
“The Veil…” My breath labored. Maybe he didn’t know it had shattered—maybe he could still fix it. “It… fell…”
“Eidra,” he interrupted, his mouth curling faintly down. “I was the Veil. The Veil was me. Don’t you understand that?”