The flame in Tamsen’s lantern flickers violently, casting the shadows around us into jagged shapes that stretch and shiver. We freeze.
The flame steadies.
Then—something shifts.
Movement to the left, just beyond the Durnharts’ shed. A shape pulls back into the trees, too quiet to be natural.
Lyra steps closer to me. “Did you see that?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. But I did.
Another shape—this time to the right. A figure, or maybe a shadow, slipping between two homes, gone before Galen can raise the lantern.
My heart hammers.
We are not alone.
A scream splits the night. High. Distant. Human. Then—nothing.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Then the dark erupts.
Shadows pour from alleyways, from behind houses, from cracks in the earth. They writhe as they move, gliding low to the ground, trailing smoke like ink in water.
They slither. Then rise.
Forms stretch and blur—jaws where there should be none, limbs that split, spines that twist backward.
They latch onto homes like insects, tearing through wood and stone.
My friends. My neighbors.My home.
They move like smoke, but they’reheavier. Like something pressed through the world sideways.
And then I hear them.
Whispers low and insidious.
They curl through the air like poison, breath dragging acrossbroken glass. The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
They fan through the village, slipping into alleys, cutting off exits, herding people like livestock. Some stalk slowly, heads tilting this way and that, scenting the air. Their hollow eyes pass over the fleeing crowds, choosing their targets.
My father pauses, eyes scanning the chaos—tight, calculating. Then his jaw hardens.
“Fellborn!” he mutters, low but fierce. “Of the Shadow Forces. By all the Elemental gods . . . what the bloody hell are they doing here?!”
Panic seizes me.
Shadow Forces.
All around us, my neighbors dart through the streets—some clutching children, others wielding rakes and pitchforks that look pitiful against the monstrous shadows.
I’ve heard stories from travelers passing through our village of their attacks along the borderlands. But never this far north.Why here?
My father meets my gaze—steady, unflinching. Behind him, the sky glows with rising fire.
“We help our neighbors,” he says calmly. “Get as many out of their homes as we can. Lead them into the woods, the fields—away from here.”
