It was Jarun standing there in her doorway. But something fundamental about him was deeply wrong this time. Out of place and snapped out of control—a disturbing kind of feeling draped over him heavily as he stepped deliberately into her room. It felt viscerally as if he carried a thick cloud of absolute darkness behind him, and everything in his wake was being swallowed whole by an endless abyss of nothingness.
The feeling of dread that Aiona had experienced upon waking grew exponentially stronger and larger in scope with each passing second, making her feel as if she were facing something of colossal size—even more gigantic and terrifying than the ancient leviathan she had once battled. This overwhelming sensation was completely a first for her. Never had she felt such existential terror.
"What did you do?" Aiona demanded without thinking twice, the words escaping her lips. He had done something terrible—she knew it with absolute certainty. What she could taste on the tip of her tongue, what she could sense in the very air, was the terrible aftermath of whatever had conspired while she slept.
At that direct accusatory question, Jarun stopped walking, positioning himself just a few feet away from where she stood. And then he just grinned widely—a terrible, knowing smile.
"You can already feel it happening? Of course you can," he said with dark satisfaction. "Considering how much you loved them all, it's only natural you'd sense their terror."
He paused as if thinking hard about something, then looked directly over at her with those glowing golden eyes.
"Can you hear their souls scream?" he added with a voice full of pleased malice. "Can you hear them calling out to you in their final moments?"
Aiona felt as if someone had violently plunged her body into the freezing northern glacier lake without warning. She shivered visibly, completely unable to contain the bone-deep chill that ran through her spine again and again in waves. She clenched her fists tightly until her nails bit into her palms and stomped forward toward him with fury.
She grabbed him roughly by the loose robe he wore and shook him violently, her hands trembling.
"WHAT DID YOU DO!" she screamed from the very top of her lungs, her voice raw and breaking. "What did you do? What the hell did you do to them?"
She continued to scream like a woman driven mad by grief and rage. As she did, her rage-wrapped voice gradually dipped and transformed, becoming saturated with profound sadness. She felt like someone had literally ripped her heart into pieces, shredding it.
And then she felt it with absolute clarity—something precious being lost forever. Something she had loved so dearly, something that had been an essential part of her very being. The invisible thread that connected her soul to her fated mate suddenly severed completely, snapping like a cut rope.
Aiona immediately let go of the repulsive man standing in front of her and dropped heavily to the ground, her legs giving out. The sensation was far too hard for her to bear. Her heart squeezed painfully with a sadness that felt infinite in scope, rendering her completely breathless and gasping.
"Hunter—" she tried desperately to breathe as she forced his name out. "Hunter, Hunter..."
She tried frantically to channel her teleportation magic so she could go to him immediately, could reach him wherever he was. But because of her muddled mind churning with raging storms of overwhelming emotions, there was no stable anchor point she could set to lock onto. And the unbearable pain radiating from her heart was just so intense it blocked her concentration entirely.
"Is he dead already?" the cold voice from above her asked casually. "What a pathetically weak fellow he turned out to be."
Jarun added the cruel observation almost as an afterthought.
Aiona started crying uncontrollably, unable to stop herself. Her tears began to fall in streams, running down her face. Since she couldn't manage to get up onto her feet, she began desperately crawling on her hands and knees toward the open door. She was terrified that the man would close it and trap her inside, but he did no such thing—instead, he just stood there and laughed melodically at her suffering, the sound beautiful and terrible.
"Well then, go ahead and witness everything with your own eyes," he said with his deep, resonant voice. "And return to me when you want revenge for what's been done. I'll be waiting."
He paused meaningfully. "If I can't have you, then nobody else can either. It's that simple."
His words flew to her ears, mixed with the wind flowing through the open door. Aiona felt like she had suddenly woken into the worst nightmare imaginable. The kind of nightmare where you lose absolutely everything you've ever loved, everyone who matters.
"No, no. This can't be real. He is alive. Everything is fine. No one is hurt," she told herself desperately, trying to convince herself as she continued crawling. "That's right, he's just trying to scare you. That's all this is. He's just angry and lashing out. Everyone is fine. Yana is fine. Garam is fine. Grendran is fine. And Hunter is fine. They're all fine."
She repeated the mantra to herself as she crawled forward, trying desperately to fight back the dread that seemed to only grow much bigger in size with each passing moment, threatening to swallow her whole.
And remarkably, it seemed to be working somewhat. The excruciating pain in her heart subdued slightly, becoming just barely bearable. She managed to get up onto her feet weakly, though she felt like her legs couldn't possibly support her weight. Even though she felt like she couldn't run, she started walking slowly, grabbing onto the wall for support like a toddler who is just learning to walk for the first time.
And as she walked further down the hallway and turned to the right to find the stairs leading downstairs, she saw something ahead. Or rather, someone. It was swaying back and forth gently, just like something hanging suspended from a thread or rope.
Aiona squinted her eyes to see better in the dim hallway light. The silhouette of this someone was very familiar to her—she recognized the shape immediately. It was Yana.
"See, she's fine," Aiona told herself with desperate relief, her voice breaking. She walked forward with renewed determination.
"Yana, dear child, where have you been?" Aiona called out as she got closer to the figure that continued swaying in that strange, somewhat unnatural manner. "I've been worried sick. That horrible man scared me."
But Yana didn't answer her call. Didn't turn around or acknowledge her presence. Instead, Aiona began to hear a low, constant murmur coming from the swaying figure—from Yana's direction.
Aiona tried to listen more carefully, sharpening her dulled senses and focusing.
"Mistress Aiona... My mistress..." the figure said in a low, monotone voice that didn't quite sound like Yana's normal tone. It continued repeating the same words constantly at regular intervals, like a broken mechanism. "Mistress Aiona... My mistress..."
Something was deeply wrong here. This wasn't normal.
"Yana?" Aiona said again, her voice now shaking noticeably, betraying her attempt at a confident outlook on things. Her hands trembled visibly.
Aiona extended her shaking hand as she got closer to the thing ahead of her. Finally, her hand reached the figure that resembled her beloved maid. She grasped its shoulder tentatively and slowly turned it around to face her directly.
What she saw made her scream.
Yana's face was there, but her eyes were completely white and unseeing. Her skin had turned grey, with black veins visible beneath its surface. Her mouth hung open, still mechanically repeating "Mistress Aiona... My mistress..." over and over.
Aiona stumbled backward, her scream echoing through the palace halls.