Lanterns twinkled, and strings of golden lights crossed the cobblestone streets like a festival frozen in time. Flowers bloomed from vines that had grown over the cottages. It was beautiful.Magical. But the people were frantic.
People scattered. Running.Hiding.A shopkeeper dragged in his baskets of fruit, slamming his shutters. Women ushered children through doorways, bolting them shut. The entire town was sealing itself in.
A bell tolled, deep and thunderous. It rolled over the town in a warning that made my mouth turn dry.
“Fuck.” The Commander’s head snapped towards the sound.
“They are inside the wall!” Solas shouted, picking up speed.
A child darted in front of me, almost making me trip. A little boy, no more than four. Tears streaked his chubby cheeks as he ran to an abandoned toy he must have dropped on the street. A small wooden horse, laying on its side.
“Leo!” a woman screamed from a doorway; arms stretched for him helplessly.
The street suddenly went silent, as if something had stolen the sound.
The Commander pulled his sword from its scabbard. The energy pulsing off it made my stomach churn, and I took an involuntary step backwards. An eerie ringing sounded in my ears. The complete absence of noise.
Gooseflesh tore across my skin. The street was not empty. Not quite. It waswrong.Like the air itself was holding its breath.
Solas eyed the dark as if it might lunge for him, gripping his sword with two hands as the lights above us flickered.
I walked towards the child, but my steps faltered the moment I sawit. At the far end of the street, just past a flickering lantern stood a Veilstrider. Too thin to be human, too tall. Its charcoal skin stretched tautly across its body, making it hard to see in the dark. Its limbs stretched long enough to scrape against the cobblestones if it were walking. But it stood eerily still. The little boy scooped up his toy and ran for his mother—but the door slammed shut, locking him out as she sealed herself inside the safety of the cottage. He stood next to me with tears streaming down his face.
When I looked back up at the Veilstrider, it was gone. As though the world had blinked and misplaced it. The back of my neck prickled. I spun?—
It was right there.
Where there should have been a scream, there was no sound. Just a suffocating pressure, like static crawling under the skin, prickling down the spine. Fear. Pure, distilled fear spread through me like an infection. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
But the Commander was already there, stalking the creature. Shadows erupted with violent force as he sprinted towards us.
The monsters head snapped towards the Commander as if it could sense him. It had no eyes to see, but itknewhe was there.
I blinked and it was gone. Erased, as though someone had wiped it off the face of the world.
The air suddenly felt lighter and the pressure vanished from my skull. The street brightened by a single shade as noise bled back to my ears.
The boy’s sobs echoed through the street, the sound no longer distorted by the strange magic.
The Commander stepped forward, shadows coiling violently around him like a storm that had not decided who to kill next. His eyes were still black, hunting, searching for the Veilstrider. “Cowardly things,” Solas muttered. Ifthat thinghad feared the Commander, enough to blink out of existence… What did that makehim?
I crouched in front of the small boy, his bottom lip trembling as he clutched his toy to his chest. His large hazel eyes shone up, glittering with tears.
“You’re okay,” I told him and scooped him into my arms. The poor boy trembled violently, his skin too cold for the summer night.
“What is wrong with him?” I asked, wiping an almost frozen tear from his chubby cheek.
The Commander placed his hand on the boy’s forehead and bowed his head. The sorrow in his eyes as they crashed into mine took my breath away.
“He is dying.” The Commander said solemnly. “Veilstriders induce a fear so intense that itfreezestheir victims.” The little boy had stopped crying, his head resting against my chest weakly, his little breaths blooming against the night air.
“No. I willnotlet him die because of a monster made to huntme!”
A scream echoed in the distance.
“More of my people are dying, Lyra.” The Commander looked at me, willing me to understand.
“Go. Save them. But I am not leaving the boy.” He nodded once. There was no time to argue.
