82. The Wraith
The Wraith
The shadow wraith drifted down the tunnel. Its purpose was clear: guard the kingdom. Protect the balance the Fates set in motion. Do not let a soul enter or escape. That was the mission embedded in the very stones it was now trapped beneath, the objective threaded into its shadows.
But it remembered…a life.
Splashes of color bled into its black and gray thoughts. A voice that was not its own, hands of human flesh rather than darkness. The wraith struggled to banish the strange memories, but something dragged it deeper into the underground caves.
Wind brushed through its shadows, pushing it down the path. Wisps of smoke curled and uncurled from its body, edges fading and sharpening over and over again as it moved. Perhaps the kingdom needed protecting. Perhaps someone meant to escape, and that was why it was being summoned here.
It floated down yet another unknown path, where heat licked at its shadows. The sensation sparked something, but it could not place the feeling. Only that it was…familiar.
Shadows unfurled as if tasting the heavy magic radiating through the tunnel. It washed over the wraith in waves, and without thinking, it sped up, trailing over stone in a whoosh of unidentifiable determination.
The wraith rounded a corner. The caves opened into a large chamber, and the first thing it saw—
Her. A figure in shades of gray, lying lifeless on a stone altar. Gray blood dripped from her head and chest.
Who is she? the voice in its head hissed. The sour musk of death hovered in the air. She was dying.
That singular thought made its shadows lose control. It was as if claws ripped through its chest. But it did not know this woman. There was something else inside, some distant memory crawling to the surface, fighting through the shadow wraith’s mind.
It drifted farther into the chamber, watching the four beings standing above her.
Three of them, the wraith recognized. The demithes who could never be allowed to leave the kingdom.
They were frozen, arms extended and heads bowed back in ecstasy.
It was some sort of ritual, the wraith thought.
White light, brighter than any shade of gray it had ever seen, flowed from a necklace around the woman’s neck and into the three demithes and a fourth man at their side.
The stench of her death grew stronger. Something inside the wraith thrashed, desperate to escape, and the wraith could not help but float closer. To trace the contours of her human face with its gaze. Why was she so familiar?
But then the necklace around her flickered, and the light suddenly stopped.
The entire cave trembled with a violent force. Rocks dislodged from the ceiling and rained down, passing through the wraith’s shadows and crumbling to the ground.
The woman’s eyes opened. Bright gold stared back at the wraith, flooding its world with color. An unknown feeling stirred in its chest. Those eyes…it remembered those eyes.
I know you, a voice in its head whispered.
Then the songbird rose from the ashes.