“Become us…”
Those words. I’d heard them before. Many times, before. It was the voices of death calling to me, beckoning me to become the deathwalker forevermore.
The darkness opened beneath me like a mouth. And then I felt it.
My essence.
Something was pulling at the center of me, unspooling my soul thread by thread.
“Join us.”
The words echoed inside my mind, layered and relentless.
The hands climbed higher, tearing at me now. And through me.
I roared and tore myself free?—
And woke.
Panting, I bolted upright, my eyes meeting stone walls, dying embers in the hearth, and moonlight spilling through the window.
Then Elariya. She slept safely beside me, her breathing slow and steady.
I wasn’t in some dark hell but the cold touch of death remained in my body.
I looked down and my breath stopped.
Half of my body had dissolved into the shadowy form of the wraith.
My arm flickered, skeletal beneath a veil of smoke. Veins glowed faintly under translucent skin, as though trapped between states.
I flexed my hand, and the wraith flexed with me.
“No. Not now,” I muttered.
I forced my magic inward, commanding it to retreat. But the fucking shadows resisted.
They clung to my essence in a way they never had before. Then a sharp pain tore through me.
The sensation of hands pulling through me returned and that was when I understood.
I never had a nightmare.
Death had come for me. And it was hungry to have me.
I leapt off the bed, as quietly as I could manage but I crashed into the dresser.
Elariya didn’t stir. Good.
I didn’t want her to see me like this.
I portaled out of the room with the aim to head to the kitchen but instead I ended up outside face down in the dirt.
“Fuccckk,” I groaned.
A rough set of hands gripped me. I fought against the grip until I realized Bastian was holding me.
“Wolfe, what’s going on?”
