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“What is it?” Mira hugs Stark to her and backs up, pushing Prim behind her. “What do you see?”

“Don’t move!” Whatever this thing is, we don’t want to draw its ire. I cautiously edge forward, attempting to lure it away from Mira and the children.

All I can gather are impressions that slide away before my brain can decipher them, accompanied by an icy chill.

A face with melting, blurred features that form and reform too quickly. Gangly, distended limbs tipped with long claws. A flash of too-sharp teeth. The shape—the creature— ebbs closer with glacial patience, its path marked by the distorted rain and the firelight bending unnaturally around it. The entity utters no sound and can barely be seen, but a malignant aura oozes off it, and the temperature plunges. I recall the chill from the tavern in Edgehallow and the first dying village.

I lunge toward the creature and swing my blade. I have no idea if steel can hurt this thing, but when in doubt, attack. Mira squeals, leaning over Stark and shuffling away from the monster and me.

When my blade connects, my heart surges with hope. Except I’m familiar with the sensation of a blade piercing flesh and bone, and this feels different. The creature isn’t hidden by air or water magic.

This is another thing entirely, cold fog with substance, or water frozen on spiderwebs. The steel slides in, reflecting the abnormal flames, before a strong force yanks. I plant my feet and lean my weight back, desperate to liberate my sword before the creature pulls me into its grasp.

I wrench myself backward and nearly lose my footing on the decaying vegetation as my sword pops free.

My earth magic flares instinctively, rushing toward solid ground to anchor my feet and enhance my strength.

The earth recoils, and a powerful force slams back so viciously that I taste copper.

The earth itself wants nothing to do with this anomaly. In the ten-meter radius around it, the earth has gone numb. Not dead, but not reactive either. Just like the gray fields we passed on our journey.

The earth rejects this creature so completely that the two cannot connect like all natural things do.

Fuck.

Adding insult to injury, the creature doesn’t even seem to notice my attack. Or else it noticed and didn’t care. Either way, it ignores me as it drifts past, floating above the ground as the rain and fire twist themselves into broken, eerie shapes.

The entity glides toward Mira.

“Everyone run!” I snatch a stick out of the fire and wave it around. Maybe I can piss this thing off. That is one of my specialties, after all.

As the flame travels in front of me, I can almost discern the creature’s form. Warped arms, too long and too sharp to be human, stretch toward Mira’s face, the multi-jointed fingers tipped by vicious claws ready to rip and rend any flesh. A huge head bows forward, as if too heavy for the neck to support it. The face appears smooth, like the features…all but the dripping mouth full of sharp teeth…were sanded away. Its gray-white skin is cratered by bloodless wounds, and its torso is long and thin and towers on legs too spindly to support its great height.

The body vanishes beyond the light of my makeshift torch, save for the distorted rain extending a too-long arm toward Mira with terrible slowness.

The sharp claw grazes her cheek just as she’s pivoting to race into the withering and drooping trees.

Gently, almost tenderly, the finger traces Mira’s jaw in an imitation of a lover’s caress. Mira quits fighting, her eyes white-rimmed in the firelight. She should run like Prim, who disappeared into the bedroom where I conjured the bunk beds.

She was clearly about to…so why doesn’t she flee?

“Mira!” I don’t know who shouts her name, but the cry doesn’t break her from her hypnotized state.

The creature’s muzzle lowers to her neck, its mouth distending like a snake’s to reveal huge, needle-sharp teeth. Mira goes rigid, her head thrown back in agony. Blood streams down the side of her neck in two spots, and the creature shudders as if in ecstasy. The longer the monster embraces Mira, the more the tension drains from her body. Her arms eventually fall slack, causing Stark to tumble to the ground.

“Mama!” His scream cuts through the collective paralysis.

I lunge forward, striking at the creature again, but it detaches from Mira before I can touch it, momentarily disappearing in the wash of the rain.

Stark tugs at Mira’s tunic, wailing, but she doesn’t notice. Her face is lax, immobile, crimson still running down the side of her neck from those two puncture wounds. Her eyes see nothing, locked on some point in the distance. I can’t bear the sight of her like this, empty and lost.

“Mama, up. Mama sick?” Stark’s chubby arms stretch up for her hands but grab her sleeve instead. The raw need in his voice turns my stomach and fuels my rage toward the creature.

Mira slowly circles away from Stark as if he’s nothing more than an insect buzzing about her head. She raises her hands to her head, pressing her fingers into her temple. Her lips move, but no sound escapes. She digs her nails into the soft flesh of her cheeks violently enough to draw blood as she scratches out the shape of an M.

After that, chaos erupts.

Someone yells. People scatter. Elan unleashes a high wail.