“Reverie!” Nathan grabbed my wrist. “Stay behind us?—”
He should have known better.
Power slammed through me, white-hot and electric, like a thousand voices whispering the same command through my blood.
“Nothis to control.”
The earth trembled. Light flared under my skin.The dead froze mid-lunge—swords inches from my face—turning rigid as stone.
Ubel’s smile finally cracked. “What did you just do?”
My voice shook, but it didn’t break. “I broke your hold.”
The corpses stood motionless, caught between his command and mine—no longer puppets, but not yet free.
“And I’m not done.”
Ubel’s expression darkened. “Interesting,” he whispered. “Trent will want to hear about this.” He glanced in Torren’s direction with a smirk.
And before Nathan’s fire could reach him—Ubel vanished into shadow.
Leaving us in a clearing full of unmoving corpses…
And a power burning in my veins that didn’t come from any Aurathion ability I’d ever heard of.
The clearing was full of flesh-and-blood statues.
Dozens of bodies stood frozen mid-strike, swords inches from their targets, eyes wide and cloudy. They weren’t breathing. They weren’t bleeding. They weren’t alive.
But they weren’t dead either.
Not really.
I couldfeelthem, like whispers pressed against the inside of my skull. Fear. Confusion. Pain that didn’t belong in bodies that should have been at rest.
Zane lowered his flames, chest rising and falling hard. “What… whatisthis?”
Nobody answered.
Because every gaze was locked on me.
Chloe started forward, but Deshawn laid a hand on her arm, stopping her.
I didn’t remember deciding to move, but I stepped forward anyway. My fingers brushed the chest plate of the nearest soldier, cold metal slick with soot.
His eyes that were soulless a moment ago, shifted just enough to find mine. A plea. The kind that didn’t need words. Not my enemy anymore. Just a soul seeking absolution.
Nathan’s voice was rough behind me. “Nexi… what are you doing?”
“I don’t know," I admitted, my voice trembling while my hands stayed steady. “But I can sense them.”
They were trapped—hooked on tangled threads of magic, tied to Ubel’s will. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t rest. They couldn’t leave.
My throat tightened. “They don’t want to be here.”
Jet’s face went pale. “Reverie, how do you know that?”
“Because I can hear them.”
