Or memories ripped loose and left to rot.
Mouths frozen mid-scream. Eyes clouded and empty, watching me with the patience of the dead.
I tried to draw breath, but the attempt tore me apart again.
Then I remembered the steel sword buried in my heart, blackened, ancient, fused to bone and sinew as if it had grown there.
Thayden.
Motherfucking bastard.
But look. He’d gotten one over on me.
His sword anchored me to this place, and I couldn’t rip it free. It seemed I existed here because it wanted me to.
More hollow-eyed faces floated past me.
A few stared at me with recognition that curdled in my gut. They drifted in slow orbits, whispering without sound. Their expressions shifted as they passed, pleading, accusing, mocking.
You failed.
You left us.
You deserve this.
I snarled and reached for the sword.
My hands closed around the hilt, and the blade pulsed, but my fingers splintered and my vision shattered.
Then a laugh echoed.
Soft.
Feminine.
Familiar.
Through the pain, I looked up just as a figure stepped out of the gray like a stain bleeding through cloth.
Zyrra. My dead sister.
But this thing that wore her face wasn’t her. I didn’t know what it was or if I’d ever get answers.
Her form shimmered, half-solid, half-shadow, as if she existed here only because this place allowed it. Her long black hair drifted around her face in a weightless halo.
Bright blue eyes that mirrored my own stared back at me with cruel delight.
I’d hoped I was seeing things, but that smile told me I wasn’t.
“Well, look at this,” she murmured, circling me. “You’re still holding on, dear brother.”
I bared my teeth. “Get out. You are not her.”
She laughed again, pleased. “Oh, brother. What makes you think that? IamZyrra Nightblade.”
“Get away from me!”
“You aren’t in any position to make those types of demands.” She reached out and pressed two fingers to the sword’s pommel.
