Page 4 of All Hallows Fate

“Time to run,” Ender said, breathless as he grabbed my upper arm and hauled me after him.

Behind us, Violence rumbled a warning at the ghostly hands clutching him. It swiftly became a roar of pain that kicked my pulse into overdrive. Oh, I had a pulse again. There’d been nothing at my wrist, no thrum of blood at my throat. If only I’d known all it took was monstrous hands pushing through the fog on either side of me, I might have done this earlier.1

“Faster,” Ender urged. “You don’t want to know what happens when these things grab you.”

“Where are we running to?” I panted, throwing my shield up when an arm tore through the fog to my right, reaching for my throat.

“There’s a part of Exile where the fog doesn’t reach. We’ll be safe there if—” He lunged suddenly left, avoiding the claws that aimed for his chest. Safe seemed a very relative word, but I’d take anything that kept these disembodied arms at bay. It was as if the mist had been watching, waiting for a chance to kill us all this time. As if Exile itself had grown limbs.

“Almost there,” Ender panted, right as a hand shot across the mist. Cold wrapped around my ankle and tore me to the ground between one step and the next.

3

Cat

Icrashed into the mist beneath me, but there was no jarring collision, no jolt of pain. I simply fell into a cloudlike cushion and was swallowed, my vision bleeding white, replaced by fog and nothing more. All sounds vanished. I couldn’t tell up from down, directions ceasing to exist with the fog around me. I could barely feel my own hands when I twitched my fingers, or my feet when I tried to get them under me.

This was what Exile really was—the endless pillow of fluffy white brume, the void of noise and smell, the utter emptiness, the infinite silence. Exile was nothing—a vacuum between life and death.

There were no clawing hands here, only peace. No fear of Violence’s lemon and mint scent, no ache in my chest from my missing memories, only fluffy fog and—

A hand latched around my wrist.

I cried out, the sound splitting the serenity of this place, and the hand tightened on my wrist until surprise turned to a sharp ache. The cotton fog of Exile clung to me, resistant as I was pulled further and further from its sticky grasp.

It took seconds to fall, but an eternity to be pulled from the fog’s grasp. Forced free, I collapsed on solid ground, wheezing as if I’d been drowning. Before I could begin to process what had happened, those ruthless hands grabbed me, lifted me off the ground, and I was thrown unceremoniously over someone’s shoulder.

“Put me down!” I screamed.

“Sure,” a dry voice snarked. “Would you like to go back in the fog, or should I hand you to Violence?”

“Ender,” I breathed, deflating.

Every running step he took jostled me on his shoulder until an ache expanded in my stomach. But that ache was strange enough after days of emptiness and a strange lack of feeling in my body that I didn’t protest.

“Hold on!” he yelled, making my eyes stream as he spun in an arc, dizziness swimming through my head from the speed. And the fact I was upside down.

“Hold on, hold on,” he rasped, standing in place, and it occurred to me the words were for him as much as me. I saw why a moment later: Violence barrelled towards us, cutting like a spread of shadow through the infinite alabaster of Exile. But he wasn’t the only one moving.

Hands thrust from the churning fog, claws curled and hooked as they reached for us—and for the intruder. I saw Ender’s plan immediately, and hated it.

“Run!” I screeched at him. It might have been silent and peaceful under the mist’s surface, but death could be peaceful as it could be violent, and I had no interest in giving up this second chance at life. Not before I could exact my judgement on those who’d wronged me. And something plucked at my chest, the deep resonant song of a cello string plucked.

It had been vibrating in me for a while, but I thought it came from the dark shadow of new magic. The silence and stillness under the fog had revealed its true source—something deeper. A vibrating string sang a low, mournful note, urging me to return. To what, I didn’t know. But I wanted to find out, and I couldn’t do that if Violence killed me. Again.

“Ender!” I screamed when the hands came close enough for their claws to brush the backs of my legs, to scythe the ends of my hair.

When they were millimetres away from grabbing me again, he whipped around, slammed down a club forged of churning, angry fog until the hands scattered, and ran so fast my head swum. My vision wavered, indistinct and hazy, but I saw the blur of Violence’s dark form collide with the monstrous hands, saw them drag him down.

“I hate you, I hate you,” I chanted as Ender sprinted at top speed, skidding around paths I couldn’t make out, kicking up fog until he reached a flat plateau where the fog was lower, calmer.

The second he put me on my feet, I punched his arm. I lost my balance and toppled onto my ass, but it was worth it to give the bastard a dead arm.

“We’re fine. No harm done,” he grumbled.

“No harm done!” I forced myself to take a breath, scanning the empty land around us. No Violence. No reaching hands. Safe, for now at least. “What would have happened if I’d stayed under the fog?”

“You’d fade away forever,” Ender replied, sitting beside me, his legs stretched in front of him. “You’re welcome for the rescue.”