It was him.
Blessed Mother, we found him. We actually found him.
But he wasn't alone. The faces of the dead pressed close around him. Hundreds of ghostly features twisted with hunger and malice.
They circled him like vultures, reaching with transparent hands that couldn't quite touch, couldn't quite claim what they so desperately wanted.
"There!" I screamed, my voice raw with desperation. "Down there! It's Wolfe!"
Bastian's wings snapped to the side, banking sharply toward the clearing. His light blazed brighter, cutting through the ash like a beacon.
Garrick and Alaric followed in perfect formation, their powerful wingbeats driving us through the oppressive air with desperate speed.
The pull inside my chest became a burning ache the closer we got.
We dove through the sky like falling stars, racing against time.
But the Soulwraiths weren't so content to let us pass.
The growing swarm rose to meet us, their shrieking forms a dark storm encircling us.
Their smoky forms elongated into twisted spears that shot toward us with impossible speed.
"Incoming!" Garrick bellowed.
The first wave hit Bastian's light barrier with a sound like thunder.
Alaric's grip on me tightened as we lurched in the air. More Soulwraiths surged upward, their hungry forms blotting out what little gray light filtered through this realm's perpetual twilight.
"The barrier won't hold!" Bastian called back.
"Split formation," Alaric commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos with military precision.
"Garrick, cover me,” Bastian shouted. “We hold the swarm. Alaric, get them to Wolfe."
Garrick released Arielle and fell into position beside Bastian while Arielle floated down on a cloud of light.
Garrick and Bastian drove straight into the heart of the Soulwraith storm. Light erupted from both their blades as they carved into the mass.
Alaric's grip on me tightened as his flight path straightened into a controlled dive toward the clearing below where Wolfe was.
Before we landed, Arielle called out a protective ward that sent her magic wrapping around us like a second skin, then we joined her on the ground.
The Soulwraiths slammed against Arielle’s barrier with soundless fury, their forms rippling like oil on water, but I could already see hairline fractures spreading across the protective dome.
Alaric set me down. My eyes were on Wolfe the instant my feet touch the ground.
I couldn’t see his face. His hulking form was slumped at an unnatural angle as if hung from strings. His shirtless torsowas covered in slashes and black bruises, and blood had pooled beneath his body, seeping into the ground.
The sword in his chest was…
Gods, being this close made my lungs lock. The sword was rooted in his chest, its blade pulsing with a sickly light.
The hilt rippled like living tissue. Veins of corruption spread from the entry wound in black lines that crawled across Wolfe’s skin like parasitic roots.
And that wasn’t even the worst thing. His body looked like it was fragmented, forming then reforming in parts.
Blessed Mother, I’d never seen anything like it.
