My lips parted to tell her to fuck off, but my strength failed me. This thing had siphoned whatever memories it could from my sister and was using them against me.
Alaric, my brother, stepped into my view, sparking my attention anew. Then Arielle appeared at his side, chanting.
Alaric grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled in one swift move.
The blade came free with a wet, sucking sound that seemed to echo through dimensions. Then a flash of white light glowed around us, blazing in waves that turned the gray realm momentarily white, washing over the dead ground and making the ash dance like startled snow.
The light was so bright it burned against my closed eyelids and so intense that even the Soulwraiths' shrieking grew distant and muffled.
I fell to my knees, and for one heartbeat, there was only the absence of that constant, parasitic drain, a blessed relief that flooded through me like cool water.
And through it all, I felt hands on me. Warm, real hands that pressed against the gaping wound in my chest. Then the ghost-Elariya leaned over me, her face tight with concentration as Arielle knelt by her side and continued to chant.
Healing magic flowed from Arielle’s palms, and I realized that none of this was a hallucination. Neither was it madness.
Arielle was here.
Arielle was real. And so was Alaric and…
Elariya.
Gods, she was here.
Somehow, by some impossible means, she was saving my life in a realm that devoured the living.
The light began to fade, leaving spots dancing across my vision and the taste of blood on my tongue.
Someonetskednext to me.
Zyrra.
I realized no one else could see her but me.
“Another time, brother. Another time,” Zyrra teased in an eerie sing-song voice. Then she snapped her fingers, and the barrier of light keeping the Soulwraiths out shattered.
Hell poured in from all sides.
The Soulwraiths rushed in like a plague of shadows, their forms writhing and coiling through the ash-thick air with predatory hunger.
They came not in waves but in torrents, a biblical flood of darkness that blotted out what little gray light remained in this forsaken realm. Their faces, twisted into masks of eternal anguish, leered at us with hollow sockets.
The air grew as thick as molasses, heavy with the stench of decay and despair that clung to their phantom forms likefuneral shrouds. They moved with the fluid grace of nightmares, reaching with fingers that trailed wisps of soul-smoke.
Bastian and Garrick flew over to form a protective circle around us. Aroundme.
We were vastly outnumbered. And I didn’t think we’d all survive.
Shewouldn’t—Elariya.
The terror on her face broke my heart.
I had to do something.
I was so weak I couldn’t even think straight. In all my three hundred years, I’d never felt this type of frailty.
But there was some power left in me. Power that might have drawn me to this land.
My curse.
