The road east bled into mist.
By the time Elira passed the black pines that marked the edge of Velmora's reach, the world had gone quiet-too quiet. Even the wind held its breath.
Her escort said nothing. The rider, cloaked in thick black furs, hadn't spoken once since they left the gates. Elira didn't know if they were soldier or servant, man or woman. Their face stayed hidden beneath a deep hood. Their silence weighed heavier than chains.
They rode through empty fields where nothing grew. The trees stood like scorched bones, their branches bare of leaves. Birds didn't sing. No beasts stirred in the underbrush. Even the sun seemed reluctant to shine.
Draemor was not yet in sight, but Elira could feel its pull in her blood.
As if something ancient whispered her name beneath the soil.
Hours passed. Maybe more. Time bent oddly here, slipping through her fingers like sand. When night finally fell, it came in a flood, not a fade-a sudden, smothering dark that swallowed the road whole.
"We stop," the rider said at last, their voice muffled, low, neither young nor old.
They made camp beneath the twisted boughs of a dead yew tree. No fire. No warmth. The rider handed Elira a hunk of dry bread and a flask of bitter water, then disappeared into the shadows to keep watch. Or to vanish, for all she knew.
Elira sat on a rock, cloak wrapped tight, and stared up at the sky.
There were no stars in Draemor's skies. Only clouds shaped like claws and a pale red moon that pulsed like a wound.
She shivered.
A sound rustled in the woods.
She stiffened. "Hello?"
No answer.
She stood slowly, heart pounding. The rider was nowhere to be seen. The horse, tied to a gnarled root, pawed nervously at the ground.
Another sound. Closer. A whisper-wet, hungry, eager.
Then she saw it.
A pair of yellow eyes gleaming in the dark.
A creature stepped from the trees-tall, twisted, half-shadow, half-man. Its limbs bent wrong. Its jaw unhinged. And its voice came in a rasp of broken language.
"Bride..."
Elira backed away.
The thing lunged.
She screamed.
But before the beast could reach her, the shadows split-and the rider appeared, blade drawn, steel catching moonlight. In one brutal motion, they struck. The creature fell with a shriek that curdled the blood, its body crumbling to ash.
The rider turned.
"You should have stayed near the wards," they said coldly.
Elira's voice trembled. "What was that?"
"A shadowbeast. The cursed lands are full of them."
"Why didn't you kill it sooner?"
The rider sheathed the blade. "Because you needed to see what awaits you."
Elira's mouth dried.
She lay down that night without another word. But sleep did not come.
She dreamed of yellow eyes and twisted limbs. Of thorns growing through her skin.
And in the far-off distance, past fire and ruin, she dreamed of a man standing alone on a balcony of black stone-watching her come.