Like a broken mirror, the Obsidian Wastes advanced before Ethan, a never-ending expanse of black glass reflecting the bruised dusk sky.
The emerald veins beneath his skin had deepened from three weeks of travel, and they pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
Inside him, the children's stolen energy entwined, scraping at his ribs like a caged storm.
The Keeper's words, "You should have let them burn," echoes through his head. "You must now bear the burden of their suffering."
Ethan watched a piece of obsidian speed across the glassy plain as he kicked it.
"Stop talking."
There was no response in the wind. The constant buzz of something waiting under the waste.
The smell of fever sweat and wet ash filled the ruins of Valenmoor.
With her boots stepping on the broken tile, Mara paced the ward courtyard's perimeter. Twelve children were tossed on flimsy beds inside the makeshift infirmary, their skin glistening with leftover green light.
Liss, the youngest, sat bolt upright, staring at nothing with her overly bright eyes.
She whispered, "The Keeper walks where shadows sleep,"
The voices of all the other kids blended into something not human as they all echoed it in perfect harmony.
Before the last syllable faded, Mara's dagger was in her hand.
Her wrist was grabbed by a healer.
"They are merely words."
"They are like hell."
Shaking free, she strode over to Liss's bed. Green flecks swirled like drowned stars as the girl's pupils dilated into black pools.
Mara touched Liss's cheek with the cold flat of the dagger.
"Who told you that?"
Liss grinned.
"She did."
The smell of copper and decaying earth filled the northern road.
Jarek used the remnants of the Order, such as gutted sheep in ditches along the road and spiral sigils on their fleeces, to track their movements. He reached the hanging tree after three miles.
Thorny vines coiled around the boy's tiny body like lovers as he swayed gently in the evening breeze. He felt his chest rise and fall. His eyes sparkled.
"She comes," the child murmured, voice layered with something ancient.
Jarek's hand shook from holding the knife.
"Who?"
The boy's spine cracked as his head tipped back.
"The First Duskheir."
Behind Jarek, the thorns moved.
The wastes let out a scream.
A psychic shriek that echoing for miles sent Ethan to his knees as pain erupted behind his eyes. The children were calling. No, something was calling through them.
A familiar serpent shape formed in the swirling black sand before him.
"Too late, little guardian," the Keeper whispered. "She's already waking up."
The sand collapsed inward.
A hand clawed free.
Bone white fingers gripped the obsidian shore, followed by an arm wrapped in tattered starlight. Eyes two pits of searing green, hair like a cascade of living shadow, Liora Veyra pulled herself up from the depths.
Ethan's locket the one he'd left with Mara burned against his chest.
Liora smiled.
"Hello, grandson."
Valenmoor's infirmary erupted in chaos.
All the kids twitched simultaneously, green light gushing from their mouths. The air vibrated with gathering power, shattering the ward stones.
Mara grabbed Liss as the girl began levitating.
"Hold them down!"
"She's hungry," Liss gasped, her small fingers digging into Mara's arms hard enough to bruise. "She's so hungry—"
The rest of the windows were blown out by the blast.
Jarek hardly moved as the thorns swung out, making pits in the ground where he had been.
The hanging boy's jaw dropped as he laughed.
"She remembers you, Ravenscroft. She remembers all her jailers."
The thorns came together to form a tall figure in the shape of a woman, fused from bleeding sap and blackberry.
Jarek's knife fell from numb fingers.
"Liora?"
The figure tilted its head.
"No."
"Older."
Ethan stumbled back as Liora advanced, her bare feet leaving prints on the obsidian.
"You're not her," he choked out. "She died to stop this."
Liora's smile widened, revealing teeth like splintered mirrors.
"Died? Or woke up?"
The Keeper's laughter echoed through Ethan's skull as the First Duskheir reached for him.
"Some bonds," she whispered, "cannot be broken."