And his shadow wraith holds my father’s knife.
Icharge forward—to dowhatI’m uncertain—but Raina flings her arms wide, blocking me like a shield. I try to step around her—I’m not the one who’s weaponless—but she shoves me back, eyes wild and commanding.
She pounds a sign against my chest, hard enough to bruise. I cover her hand with mine, feeling the shape.
Obey.
It takes everything in me to listen and keep my feet rooted where I stand. Shadow wraiths are part of Tiressia’s ancient history that no longer belongs in our world. Wraiths haven’t roamed our lands for centuries, the connection to the Shadow World severed by Urdin, God of the Western Drifts. Yet one is here, doing the bidding of a dangerous man.
I glance around. How did the prince know we were in the forest? Did his magick sense us?
“My prince says that I’m not meant to kill you, pretty Raina. Your time to die is not now. I am to take you to my lord.” The thing pointsHelena’s dagger at me instead. “But I get to killhimif I must.” It takes a step, raising Helena’s angled brow over her cat-like gaze. “And I must.”
Raina looks at me from the corner of her eyes and flutters her fingers.
Instinctively, I know what she’s asking for.
My sword.
There’s only one way to destroy a wraith. One of us has to kill Helena—quick and precise—to trap the wraith within. If we fail, if the girl clings to life a moment too long, the wraith could slip inside one of us instead.
The last thing I need is something else inside me.
There are no Old Elikesh words to whisper to send this demon back to the Nether Reaches of the Shadow World, so I relent and hand Raina my weapon. This is something I must let her face. It’sherfriend’s life. This wraith is hers to kill.
But though she readies the blade and prepares her stance, I still fear she won’t be able to do what must be done. The wraith doubts her, too. It laughs, a vile sound echoing through the wood.
“You’ll never do it,” the thing says, the lamp light illuminating Helena in a way that makes her look gaunt and grim. “You’ll never kill your dear, young friend.”
It tilts Helena’s head at an abnormal slant, and the stare coming from the girl’s eyes changes. The white storm hovering over her pupils dissipates, and her irises darken to their normal state.
But sweet gods, her face. It changes, contorting on the edge of a rising scream while the rest of her body remains stiff and still as ice. Her brow crumples with cold fear, and terror flashes across her features, widening her eyes, trembling in her chin.
When her scream tears loose, rupturing the frosty air of the quiet forest, it’s Helena. The sound—disturbing as it is agonizing—is wholly her, aware and present, echoing without a hint of the perverse possession living inside.
“Raina, please! Help me!”
Tears slide hot and fast down the girl’s dark cheeks as she strains, struggling against the thing keeping her imprisoned. She bristles, andher shoulders jerk violently, her feet moving her body forward with lumbering steps, like maybe she’s winning the fight.
Or maybe the wraith is taunting us. Taunting Raina. Letting her glimpse enough of her friend to make the necessary end more difficult.
Raina flexes her fingers around the hilt, chest rising and falling fast with rapid breaths. I can sense her indecision. Her uncertainty. The impossibility of the moment.
She doesn’t succumb to the lure. Instead, she shifts her weight from foot to foot as Helena inches closer.
This wraith won’t let me escape easily, and it won’t let Raina walk away. It will use Helena to achieve its goal, whatever that may be. The Prince of the East clearly wants the threat of my existence removed, but he has plans for Raina, too, it seems.
And that will not do.
While the wraith has given up a bit of its hold, I bend down, going for the curved knife in my boot. If Raina can’t stop this thing, I will.
But I don’t get the chance.
The wraith sweeps Helena’s arm through the air and, with so little effort, knocks Raina out of the way, sending her tumbling along the snowy path.
The horses spook and take off in the same direction while the wraith rushes me like it did at the lake. It sheathes its knife and grabs my blanket, managing to fist my tunic, too, and slings me through the air like I’m no more than an annoying branch under its feet.
I slam into a tree at the path’s edge, pain zipping up my spine and ringing my skull before I collapse face-first in the snow.
