But she never got to finish the thought. The corpses that had collapsed with Skarn’s earlier rage began to twitch—first a shiver through their limbs, then a faint, spasming jerk. Fingers scraped at the ground. Heads rolled upright.
“Fuck.” She crouched, hooking her arm under Kaelith’s, and hauled him up until his weight slung across her shoulder and back.
His groan was a gasping curse against her ear.
“I guess killing Skarn wasn’t the Hail Mary we thought it’d be,” she muttered, glancing sideways at the writhing dead.
“Hail who?” Fenn closed the distance in two long strides.
“Never mind.” Her free hand reached for him, squeezing his arm. “Hopefully, the others have found a way to drop the barrier.”
Sound swelled then, soft at first, before rolling through the field as the dead all turned their heads at once. But not toward them. Or toward the barrier. They now faced toward the horizon where the last lines of civilization lay.
Fenn’s voice went tight. “Can you flash us to the others?” His hand closed over hers.
“Flash?” She smirked despite herself, then shook her head. “I don’t know where they are now, and it’s too crowded. We could drop right in the literal middle of them.”
“Which would be bad,” Fenn said flatly.
“Understatement.” She nodded.
The first rows of corpses began to lurch forward. Without Skarn’s control, their movement had lost its eerie precision—they stumbled now, clumsy in the way rot demanded—but teeth still gnashed, and blades still reached.
“I’ll clear a path.” Fenn’s grip on her hand tightened once before he let go. “Follow on my right.”
“Yes, boss.” The words left her mouth on instinct. Fenn in commander mode was nearly as hot as teacher mode.
“Yesss. As you wish, Commander,” Kaelith drawled from over her shoulder.
Fenn’s gaze cut to the other man, nose wrinkling. “You and I are going to have words when this is done. Kaelith.” His eyes flicked back to Rynna. “Let’s go.”
Then he was gone, the wind at his heels and stone splitting under his stride.
“Really?” Rynna smacked Kaelith on the back of the head as she took off after Fenn, the dead already spilling into their wake.
Chapter forty-nine
“Whatdoyoumeanyou couldn’t break the barrier?”
Rynna crouched, easing Kaelith to the ground inside the burning circle. Fire cracked and hissed in her peripheral vision, casting flickering light across the scorched ground beneath them. Just beyond the wall of flame, the dead shuffled past in slow, clumsy waves, their rotten limbs twitching in rhythm with some unseen pulse. The green glow of the barrier surged up beside them, humming like a living wound torn into the sky.
Taren slid his great sword into the sheath on his back with a heavyclack. “It’s like the remnants of power I found on the lost continent.” He frowned, studying the shifting light. “But warped. Twisted by whatever’s inside.”
He glanced toward Bran, who met his look with a tense nod. Something unspoken passed between them—worry, maybe, or fear neither was ready to say aloud.
“I don’t even understand why it’s here at all,” Kaelith muttered. He peeled a strip of blood-soaked fabric from the ruin of his pants, revealing the mangled mess of his leg beneath. “I thought they needed the Phoenix to complete…” His brows pulled low. “Whatever it is they’re building. A wall like this cuts them off from exactly that. Seems counterproductive.”
Bran crossed his arms. “The dead will steal the hope of the world before whatever’s behind it comes for our souls.”
Elara turned toward him, blinking. “What?”
He shrugged. “That’s what Hika says, anyway.”
Silence rippled through the group. For a beat, no one moved.
Then Rynna stiffened, the edge of something pointed crawling across the back of her mind. An itch she couldn’t reach. Her lungs stuttered as a flash of memory sliced through her: talons raking through her body, the burn of something ancient and cruel ripping her apart.
No!
