The legionnaires nodded, expressions warring between duty and discomfort.
“Can you all sense it?” Mithras implored again, louder, more insistent.
“Yes, my lord!” the legion echoed.
“And can you spot it, even if it walks among you?” He arched his hands through the air, motioning at the depths of the forest. The shadows had lengthened, drawing attention to the encroaching darkness.
“Yes, my lord!” the Light Legion repeated, their voices rising as one.
“And would you drag it out of the shadows and bring it to the light? Bring it to me?”
They nodded grimly and bowed. “Yes, my lord.”
“We must walk in the shadows,” Mithras intoned.
“To walk in the light,” they answered.
“Good. Set up camp,” Mithras ordered. “We will soon reunite the Shadow Bringer with an eternity of damnation. He has no escape.”
The legionnaires exchanged glances, clearly uneasy. Mithras’s attention, meanwhile, lingered on me. And as the legionnaires scurried away to their various duties, fading into the night, I noticed that he was the only one without terror in his eyes.
My dreams were playing tricks on me.
The moon had shifted, revealing a hauntingly beautiful man with moon-white hair, bloodless skin, and eyes made alive by churning shadows. I couldn’t move, couldn’t so much as turn my head, but I could see him as clearly as I could see the embers of the legion’s dying fire.
The Shadow Bringer.
His movements were stiff and strange, as though he was uncomfortable in his own skin. And maybe he was. Where his skin was porcelain smooth in the Realm, it was now marred by bruises and hollowing dips under his eyes. He looked awful—and more human than ever. I tried to see his facial features more clearly, but it was painstakingly difficult to focus. He wore a helm, much like the one he wore in the Dream Realm, but it was in terrible condition. He flexed his pale fingers. Dried red blood still clung to his skin, and his ripped clothing was markedly darker in several places, smeared with dirt, dust, and even more blood.
His? Someone else’s?
My eyes drifted shut. I was imagining him. He was not real.
He isn’t real.
Slowly, I began to feel the ground beneath my back, the wind pressingagainst my face, and the grip of my hands clutched over my dress. I took a furtive glance around the camp, expecting the legionnaires to be awake and aware, but they remained silent and still, sprawled out atop their various bedrolls. Ashes floated in the wind, leftover from both our hurried evening meal and charred torches half-burning on the ground.
Too still.
Silas reclined near the half-dead campfire. His eyes were closed, face unlined and unconcerned. I touched his neck, feeling for a pulse, and nearly buckled with relief when I felt the weakthumpof his heartbeat. Not dead, but nearly. And where was Elliot? Frantically I scanned the clearing, unable to find him. But then I saw the Shadow Bringer’s tomb and Iknew.
My blood chilled.
The Tomb of the Devourer, watching over the sleeping camp like a yawning beast, stood open, a wound of black marking its entrance. Someone had moved the stone slab, leaving the entrance unguarded and bare.
Elliot. If he hurt Elliot…
Consumed with fear and rage, I sprinted into the tomb. A weight washed over me as I entered, a silent scream begging me to leave. It was dark, damp, and emanating with despair. But I couldn’t leave—not until Elliot was safe and the Shadow Bringer was dead.
The prince of darkness was easy to find. He knelt at the bottom of a staircase by two skeletons, tears gleaming silver in the half-light of the tomb.
Grief was familiar to me. It lived in the heart of Norhavellis. It had lived in my mother and father after Eden’s death. It lived in Elliot, who had watched as his goat, a soft, gentle creature that he’d bottle-fed from birth, was dragged into the Visstill by creatures with white fangs and hateful eyes. It lived in me.Suffocatedme.
Apparently it lived in the Shadow Bringer, too.
I hesitated at the top of the staircase. He had put the Light Legionto sleep—had put them to sleep and climbed back into the Tomb of the Devourer as if he wanted me to find him.
Whowasthe Shadow Bringer, really?
