As Orion sped forward, she dove deep into both bonds, unsure if what she would face meant repairing or retribution.
Within seconds, she could see black smoke billowing over the treetops, blotting out the sun and swallowing the clouds, but she did not slow her approach.
The forest blurred as she let Power unfurl—heightening her senses, sharpening every breath. Coming around a bend in the road, Astraia gasped, pulling hard on Orion’s reins to stop.
Pure chaos unfolded before her. The town was ablaze, but as Astraia looked more carefully, she could tell the flames were not natural. Red-hot flickering blazes licked the sides of the buildings, twisting and turning as though a snake of hellfire was consuming the streets.
The townspeople were running between houses, trying to douse the flames with buckets of water, but to no avail. The water evaporated before it even hit the flames.
Several people laid lifeless in the street, their loved ones wailing over their bodies.
A boy knelt beside a woman’s body, his hands stained with ash as he shook her.
“Mama,” he sobbed, over and over. “Mama, wake up.”
Astraia’s throat burned. Sacrifice flared white-hot in her chest.
The rest hit her like a wave—flames, smoke, bodies. Dominion had already claimed too many.
But the Stars be damned if she let him take one more soul.
Somewhere beyond the flames, something shrieked—high-pitched, unnatural. The kind of sound that didn’t belong to anything living.
Astraia’s head whipped in the direction of the shriek, at the center of the town where the smoke was thickest.
A flicker of red tore through the smoke, then another.
Astraia’s pulse quickened as she realized it was a pair of molten red eyes peering through the billows directly at her. Her mind reeled at the eerie similarity to the wolves she had only just encountered a few days before—the same hunger and evil radiating from them.
Stepping from the black abyss, a monstrous form took shape, the owner of the unholy eyes. At first glance, it appeared to be a massive man, towering over seven feet tall, but as the smoke parted with his steps, her heart stopped.
The formidable figure was wearing black steel armor and a hooded, tattered cloak that was black as pitch, darker than the starless skies. Only part of the creature’s face was visible, dark gray skin, cracked with black fractures—as though it burned from the inside, fissures forming from the combustion.
And eyes gleaming red. Red as the blood of those slain at the creature’s hand.
The horrifying monster carried a dark iron sword, black smoke billowing from the edges of the blade.
Realization hit Astraia like a cold wave.
Wraith.
Once stewards of Dominion, the Constellation that started the Celestial Wars eons ago. But Dominion had fallen, shattered according to Astradeon history, along with his stewards.
Yet here, in a small town on the outskirts of Volpes, was the very figure made of nightmares.
The wraith moved deliberately, each step pounding the earth with a force that would make even the bravest soldiers inAstradeon tremble. Sparks of vile fire spewed from the impact of each boot, eager to take hold of the nearest townhome.
Several of the women around Astraia screamed as they pointed to the unholy creature gliding through the smoke. Men stopped bailing water, throwing down their water buckets, grabbing their wives and children and fleeing into the woods behind her.
The monster paid the fleeing crowd no mind, his attention focused on Astraia.
Astraia steeled herself, stepping into the town square directly in his path. He was still several yards away, but she was not going to give him the luxury of gaining ground.
She forced her tether down, into the earth, into the sky, into the trees, into the air she breathed—anchored to the soul of Astradeon. Her mind opened, the lid to Power unhinged, and pure force poured into her.
The world slowed as her senses sharpened, white light pouring into her hands and surrounding her body. She could feel her eyes glowing white, her hair standing on end as Power engulfed her.
She did not know how a wraith came to be here, but she would not allow its path of destruction to continue.
