Slowly, Nein'a turned toward him.
Her once beautiful face was shriveled dried flesh across her skull. Large and slanted eyes were now empty sockets. She was long dead.
"Too long… too late," whispered Nein'a's corpse. "You're far too late for me."
She crumpled to dust before Leesil's eyes.
He couldn't move, couldn't even cry, and knelt there alone in the dark. Dusty grit from her corpse caked in the blood on his outstretched hands.
Magiere landed before him in a feral crouch, sending the dust of his mother billowing up around them. Her irises were full black, teeth extended in a canine snarl.
"Come back to me, Leesil," she said. "Please, I need you."
Wynn ran up the inland road, but once outside the town, she did not know which way to turn. The blue-white mist still plagued her vision, making her steps uncertain, but at least the eddies and currents had stopped moving. Vordana was certainly gone.
And further clouding her thoughts was Chane.
"Leesil!" Wynn called out. "Chap… Magiere?"
She could not ask for Chane's help, and she hoped with all her heart that he was on his horse and gone. If Magiere found him following them, she would destroy him, and part of Wynn now understood the dhampir's way.
And still, Chane had come in search of her, to bring her back to sages' guild and the warm comfort of her own life. This was not the action of a monster.
"Chap!" she shouted again.
She stumbled along the road, looking both ways through the dense forest and calling their names over and over.
"Mother…" a voice cried out. "Nein'a?"
It was Leesil.
Wynn took off through the woods. "Wait for me!" she called. "I am coining for you!"
Her short robe caught on a bramble. She stumbled and jerked it free. When she turned to hurry on, she caught sight of something vivid amid the forest's weave of blue-white essence. It was the back of Leesil's glowing white-blond hair, and she rushed toward him.
His amber eyes were the same bright yellow sparks that hurt to look at, but he stared through her vacantly.
"Come back to me, Leesil," she said in a moan. "Please, I need you."
Leesil did not move. Wynn tried shaking him, but she could barely move his body. Scarf missing, his long hair was tangled with tree needles and leaves.
'Too late…" he whispered. "Oh, Magiere, we took too long… and she died… alone."
He was lost in delusion. Wynn bit her lower lip, unwilling to start weeping again. She needed some way to rouse him, or at least make him recognize her.
Wynn reached into her robe pocket and felt the cold lamp crystal. She squeezed and ground it until its sharp edges hurt her palm. She kept rubbing, hard and quick, making certain its light would burn painfully bright.
"Look at me," she said sharply. "I am Wynn… see we!"
She grasped his jaw with her free hand, pulled out the crystal, and thrust it directly in front his eyes. The light was intense.
Leesil jerked his head away from her hand and grabbed both her wrists.
"Wynn?" he asked, and then sucked in a sharp breath. "My mother… dead. I'm too late."
"No!" Wynn answered, and closed her hand around the crystal to mute its glare. "It was not real. Vordana planted a seed in your mind that your own fears gave shape. Magiere and Chap are out here somewhere and may be wandering in the same state. We have to find them before anything happens."
Leesil looked around the clearing. "Magiere?"
He let her go and got to his feet with effort. Wynn stood, as well, swallowing down nausea as her vertigo surged.
"Which way?" he asked.
"Back to the road, and the town… and perhaps you can track her?"
He was still trembling, but he was Leesil again, and Wynn followed as he pushed on through the forest.
Chap ran through a dying land.
Trees and brush wilted before his eyes as shadows ambled through the forest. The world was dying… it was his fault. Spirits were wrenched from the trees and the earth to be swallowed by the walking shadows.
Chap slowed among the dead oaks and spruces to look back along his path. There was nothing left alive. The silhouettes came ever closer with a lone figure out in front, a heavy sword glinting in its grip. It stepped out into view.
Magiere wore black armor of scales like those of a massive serpent. Her filthy hair hung in matted tendrils. Her face was as sallow as Parko's, the first Noble Dead she had ever killed. Brother to Rashed in life and afterlife, Parko had lost himself on the Feral Padi, existing only for the sensual ecstasy of the hunt. Magiere's irises were full black, not like the colorless crystalline of hungry undead, but Chap saw Parko's ecstatic madness in her eyes.
She roared, no longer recognizing him, and exposed long fangs amid yellowed teeth.
Behind her, the shadows solidified into a horde.
Noble Dead drew near on all sides. Vampires with their pale skin, elongated nails and teeth. Wraiths like black shadows that shifted in and out of physical presence. There were two of the ardadesbarn, the half-dead of Wynn's continent. And packs of ghul from the Suman Empire's northern arid mountains, mortal demons who fed on the living flesh.
There were remnants of living things from the end of the last epoch-the end of the human's Forgotten History. Hulking locatha, more reptile than humanoid, and squat goblins with features like hyenas and yellow eyes that twitched.
Some wore tattered clothes or scavenged armor, and most wielded weapons of war.
All eyes were upon Magiere, waiting expectantly.
Chap had sacrificed eternity among his brethren Fay. He had taken the flesh of one lifetime, so that he might fulfill an all-encompassing purpose: to keep Magiere in the light, bound to Leesil… to keep her from the enemy's hands and the purpose for which she'd been made. He looked at her standing before this horde like the general of an army.
He had failed.
"Majay-hi." Magiere spat at him.
Chap's sorrow welled up and spilled from him in a wail.
She knew him. And she had become his enemy.
Magiere rushed him, falchion rising and ready to fall. And the horde surged forward, leveling all living things in its path.
Chap stood listless, unable to fight back. The blade fell and bit deep between his shoulder and neck…
Magiere's hungered face faded-but the pain did not.
Chap stumbled and then blinked.
Magiere and the horde and the dead world all vanished.
Around him was the empty Droevinkan forest. Through the trees to the south he saw the manor house and grounds. Something wet dragged across his ear. He jerked away and saw two filmy eyes staring at him in puzzlement.
Shade whimpered as she nosed him again. His shoulder hurt, and she had blood on her muzzle. She licked him, and Chap flinched at the pain running through the base of his neck. She had bitten him and now tried to clean the wound.
He remembered the decayed Noble Dead in the town, the sorcerer, and something piercing through his thoughts like a thorn. He growled at the memory, and licked Shade's head in return.
This simple creature had found him and, without true understanding, had called him back. The delusion remained in his memory, and he could not shake its weight from his spirit. Chap bolted for the town, keeping a pace that Shade could match.
Magiere's cuts and scrapes stung as she skidded to a stop in the town's midway. In her mind, she saw Leesil's wrist as he'd offered himself to her. Where was he… or Chap and Wynn… or the creature they'd faced?
"Leesil?" she shouted. "Can you hear me?"