Tauriel was still catching her breath from the earlier flight when the temperature around her dropped without warning. She spun, staff already half-raised, and froze.
The creature stood less than three paces away.
It had not only passed through the barrier but had appeared beside her without triggering a single one of her senses. No footsteps. No displacement of air. No surge of mana. One moment the path behind her had been empty. The next, the thing was simply there.
It lacked any true physical form. Its outline flickered like smoke caught in a weak wind, roughly humanoid but constantly shifting at the edges. In places it was almost transparent. In others it held a denser, darker mass that seemed to drink in the surrounding light. Despite the absence of flesh or bone, an unmistakable evil radiated from it in waves. The same crushing dread Tauriel had felt at the distortion now pressed against her from only a few steps away, stronger and more focused.
