The land did not stay still as Leira walked. The cracked earth shivered beneath her boots in tiny, trembling pulses, like something buried deep under the surface was breathing, tasting her steps. Every few seconds a ripple of heat rolled across the ground, bending the air into shimmering waves that made the world wobble at the edges.
The realm wasn't just dead, it was watching her.
The sky above sagged low and heavy, still bruised with that rotting gray red color, but now faint streaks of darker smoke drifted across it, slow and lazy, with no wind to actually move them. The smell was wrong too, it was dry, metallic, like stone scorched too many times. The air scraped her lungs with every breath.
As she moved farther from the realm's shimmer, shadows scattered across the broken landscape. But they didn't scatter in fear, they shifted the way dust might shift from a passing carriage, simply making space for something larger that they recognized. Their movements were jerky, twitching, each step deliberate and unnatural. Limbs bent backward, heads lolling forward. Shapes half-formed, half-dissolved.
They parted around her like she didn't belong here. Or maybe like something inside her did.
Her chest tightened again. The pain came in a slow, devastating pull, like a hook buried beneath her ribs yanking backward. Leira gasped and pressed a hand over her sternum as the bond grew hotter, sharper.
It dragged her forward. The agony was back, slicing through her spine, radiating up into her throat until she tasted metal. Her knees hit the ground hard as another shock of pain ripped through her body.
Kael.
The bond had no voice, but it didn't need one. She felt everything.
A flash…
Kael choking on darkness, his hands clawing desperately at something unseen tightening around his neck.
Another flash…
His breath leaving him in harsh, broken bursts as shadows dragged across his skin like burning tar.
Another…
His voice was hoarse, guttural, trying to form her name through agony.
And worse: The pain never faded.
It wasn't momentary torture. It was constant. They never gave him a moment of peace, a moment to gather himself together. His suffering was a steady, simmering burn beneath her ribs, always there, always gripping her spine, always threatening to pull her to her knees again.
Leira squeezed her eyes shut and forced a breath through clenched teeth.
"Hold on," she whispered, her voice raw. "Hold on, Kael. I'm coming."
The words vanished into the dead air, devoured instantly by the oppressive stillness.
A faint tremor echoed through her body.
But not from the bond this time, it was from the Veil.
Its voice crackled suddenly, thin and frightened. "Leira…"
She straightened, wiping dust from her palms. "What is it?"
"There is movement behind us."
Her heart stuttered. "Movement? Is it a Shadow?"
"No."
A flicker of static broke through the Veil's words.
"This isn't a creature of any land but this one. It is not a shadow…it's not anything living or dead."
Leira turned her head slightly, a prickle running down her arms. "Then what is…?"
"Something discarded." The Veil's voice warped unevenly. "Something the realms do not claim."
A cold weight settled into her stomach.
"Wh…what do I do?"
The answer was quick, urgent, and trembling.
"Do not turn around."
Leira froze.
A bead of sweat slid down her neck, instantly turning cold despite the heat. The air thickened until she felt like she was breathing through sand.
Behind her… a scrape.
It was soft, sharp, and awfully close.
Leira's pulse slammed against her throat.
But a he didn't turn.
Another sound. A tiny shift. Like something adjusting its limbs.
Then silence.
Her entire spine pulsed with dread. Slowly, carefully, she turned her head over her shoulder.
Nothing.
The cracked landscape behind her lay still, empty…lifeless.
Except…
A stone she was certain had been upright before now lay on its side, and then a fissure she hadn't noticed earlier cut deeper into the ground.
And a shadow that had stretched long across the dirt was simply… gone.
Her mouth dried. Something had moved. Something had been there. Watching.
She blinked…
And froze.
It was closer now.
A tall, skeletal silhouette several steps behind her, thin as bone, crooked, flickering at the edges like a torn piece of cloth whipping in wind that didn't exist. Her breath caught as her eyes tried, and failed, to focus on its face.
Because it didn't have one.
Or rather, it had too many.
Its head shifted through different shapes in quick, nauseating blurs. A hollow mask. A twisted snarl. A featureless plate. A pair of empty sockets. Then nothing at all.
Leira stumbled back, bile rising into her throat.
"What…what is that?"
The Veil didn't answer immediately. When it did, the voice was broken by static.
"Do not blink."
Leira's eyes snapped open wider.
"What?"
"Leira…listen to me." The Veil surged with fear she had never heard from it before. "As long as you are looking at it, it cannot move. If you blink, if you look away even for a heartbeat, it will be upon you."
Her eyes burned instantly from the dry heat, as if the realm itself wanted to force her to blink.
Leira swallowed every instinct screaming at her to run. Instead, she began to walk backward, slow and careful, never taking her gaze from the creature.
Her eyes stung…her vision blurred.
The heat grew unbearable, drying tears before they could fall. Every muscle in her body trembled as she kept her eyes wide.
Her throat felt carved out from the inside.
"One step at a time," she breathed. "Just one step…"
Her boot slid on loose dust. Her eyes snapped shut in reflex.
And then one blink…just one.
And the creature appeared a breath away.
Its long, crooked fingers were inches from her cheek.
Leira screamed and threw herself backward. The blink had allowed it to move in a single distorted jump. She scrambled across the cracked ground, boots slipping on the brittle surface.
The creature tilted its head, its many masked face flickering like a broken lantern.
She scrambled to her feet and ran.
Her lungs burned as the scorching air cut her throat raw. She didn't dare look back. She didn't dare blink. Her vision wobbled violently, her eyes flooding with tears that evaporated instantly.
Another blink… it was uncontrollable.
The creature appeared again, closer this time, one elongated limb dragging behind it, its body shifting in jagged frames.
Leira's panic spiked into her throat. She choked a breath and sprinted harder. She wasn't fast enough. She knew that. This thing didn't move through time, only between her moments.
A wind, hot and sharp, suddenly blew sand directly into her face.
Her eyes squeezed shut before she could stop them.
A hand slammed onto her shoulder.
She cried out as a burning cold spread through her skin. The touch didn't feel like fire or frost, it felt like something removing her. Like her existence itself was being scraped away.
"No…NO!"
She twisted violently and threw herself sideways, hitting the ground hard. She rolled until her back slammed into a cracked ridge. Her chest heaved; her pulse thundered painfully in her ears.
The creature lunged.
Leira grabbed the nearest stone, anything her hands could touch, and swung.
The brittle rock shattered on impact.
The creature reeled for a half second, not from pain, but from the disruption, as if the contact had confused its form.
"Leira!" the Veil cried, distorted. "The ground…beneath you…!"
A deep rumble surged under her.
The earth cracked wide beneath her boots, splitting like a gash opening in flesh. Heat billowed out of the fissure, and from within the broken earth something glinted.
A dark, sharp fragment. It's was like a crystal, irregular and warm.
She reached down for it and snatched it.
The creature lunged again, its limbs snapping into new angles as it moved.
Leira swung with all her strength.
The fragment connected with the creature's torso. A soundless shock rippled through the air, and the creature shrieked, not with sound, but with a vibration that rattled Leira's bones. It recoiled violently, folding in on itself, its body spasming as if the fragment had burned through every shifting layer of its form.
Leira stumbled backward, panting, clutching the shard tightly.
"What…what just happened… what is this?" she gasped.
"It is piece of the realm," the Veil whispered. "Alive. And it is forged from the same laws that created those vile creatures. It rejects their existence."
The creature spasmed again, its shape cracking like glass stretched too thin. Its limbs jerked, masks sliding over one another like shuffled cards. Then… it fled.
Not running, not crawling.
It just simply vanished.
Leira stood trembling, her breath sharp and uneven. Sweat dripped from her brow; her hands shook around the shard.
Then…
A sudden, violent snap pulled inside her chest. So hard she staggered.
It was her bond with Kael.
The bond yanked her like someone had hooked her heart and pulled. A muffled scream echoed across the dead land.
It was Kael's voice…but it only came once.
And then silence. Cold, deafening silence.
"Kael!" Leira screamed, voice breaking as she dropped to her knees. "KAEL!"
The earth beneath her feet shuddered at the sound of her grief. Cracks split deeper into the ground. The sky pulsed with sick red light. The air vibrated with the realm's response to her despair.
She felt him, his presence flickered weakly inside her chest.
Once.
Then again.
A faint pull, dragging her toward a distant crooked ridge.
Leira wiped her face with shaking hands, forcing herself to breathe.
She stood.
Her knees almost buckled, but she stood.
The shard in her hand quivered faintly, reacting to the realm's shifting energy.
Somewhere behind her…a soft scrape, another one.
She didn't turn. But she knew.
The creature was back, maybe another one like it, and this time, it was just watching her, waiting patiently for her to blink.
Leira tightened her grip on the shard, she lifted her chin, and stepped forward.
The feeling of his presence pulled her deeper into the dead world.
Toward Kael…toward whatever waited next.