Freya

Screams tear from my chest as I grab his clothes, pulling him towards me.

"Cas!" I scream. "Cas, no, no, no. Wake up wake up wake up."

Long, thin cuts mark his jaw. His hair sticks to his forehead, dried with old blood. Hands grasp my shoulders, but I can barely see Alaric when he forces me around.

"We have to go," he urges.I can't speak; I can barely breathe. He tries to pull me from Casimir, but I scream in protest. "Freya, please--"

A dark shape hits him from the side, sending him flying through the fog and landing with a thump several feet away. I scramble backwards, breath ragged as I stare into the thick fog. My heart hammers in my ears as the fog makes way.

A figure materialises before me, stark against the fog-drenched landscape. At my feet, Casimir lies vacant, bloodied and cold. My stomach churns as the figure moves closer, twisting the fog around him to reveal his identity.

Bile rises in my throat.

Killian stalks towards me, his dark eyes alight with something I've never seen before. Hunger.

"K-Killian?" I rasp. His head tilts sideways. Fresh blood stains the area around his mouth. "Killian, it's me."

He stalks closer, sharp teeth poking through his sinister smile. His hand reaches out, fingers shifting into claws. Terror grips me. I try to push to my feet but trip over gnarled roots.

Killian looms over me, features contorted.

"Freya."

My vision fragments as Killian closes in.

"Freya."

The forest shatters around me, pieces falling away like tiny shards of glass. I grasp at the fragments of Casimir, even of Killian as they fall away, leaving a blank canvas of darkness in their place.

Gone is the forest, the fog, the bodies. Everything is still.

"Frey."

Twisting my head, a small figure materialises in the emptiness. My heart picks up. "Samu?" I whisper, afraid to shatter the peace. He moves closer. My muscles loosen at the sight of him. It's been so long since I've seen the warmth of his eyes, the innocence in his smile. I reach towards him.

"Are you real?" I ask, my eyes blurring.

"You have to wake up," he whispers.

"I..." I look around, trying to make sense of the empty space. "I don't know where I am."

"You have to wake up. You have to find me."

"I-I don't know where you are."

"You have to find me," he urges. "You can't do it alone. You can't."

"Samu--"

"Wake up, Freya."

I shove to my feet, reaching for him. But as my hand comes into contact with him, he falls away, twisting into nothing before my eyes. I pant, spinning around in the empty space.

Wake up, I urge. Wake up.

Pressure presses into my shoulders, pressing me backwards. I squeeze my eyes shut.

It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.

The scene falls away around, sounds return. The distant trickle of water, the vibrant warmth of the earth beneath me. Breaths, ragged breaths all around me. I force my eyes open, the scene around me blurring into vision.

"Freya?" Hands grasp my shoulders, shaking me forcefully. Lei blurs into vision, concern lining her face. "Freya, can you hear me?"

I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Over her shoulder, Alaric hovers. As our eyes meet, he kneels next to Lei, brows pulled together.

"T-the cloud." I rasp.

"It's gone," Alaric assures me. "It didn't reach the village."

"It cleared almost as soon as you left," Lei adds. "I tried to find you but.... You were gone."

The memories flood back. Alaric finding me, Casimir's body, Killian's eyes. Was Alaric ever there at all? A shudder crawls down my spine.

Alaric reaches out towards me, hand brushing against my arm. "Here. Let me help you."

He offers me a hand. As I push to my feet, my knees buckle, a sudden pain shooting up my arm to my chest. I cry out, crumbling back down. Alaric catches my fall with an arm around my waist.

"You're hurt," Lei demands, grabbing my arm.

"N-no." I manage, but Lei's horrified expression silences me as she stares down at me. I follow her gaze, my stomach lurching. Black lines ink all the way to my elbow, searing red as if freshly branded into my skin.

But it's the shooting pain that follows, not the sight, that makes everything fall black.

Casimir

The inside of Myers cabin remains the exact same state from the last time we visited. Cluttered and claustrophobic. A stale stench hangs in the air, as if the door hasn't been opened for months. Killian, unbothered, casts aside several pieces of furniture blocking the path of the narrow hall to venture towards the light.

"Myers!" he calls. "We know you're here."

The lack of response does not deter us. I fight the urge to block my nose as we navigate through the piles of rubbish, strategically placed in our path. Ahead of me, Killian pauses at the end of the hall, his eyes settling on something beyond my view.

I step closer, stopping beside him. Myers sits in a small rocking chair in the corner, a single lantern sitting atop a pile of dusty books beside him. His expression, cold and unwelcoming, greets us.

"I did not answer the door for a reason," he says in greeting.

Killian flashes one of his arrogant grins. "Yeah, see, we travelled all this way. It would've been a shame if we'd missed you. I do hope you'll forgive me for the door."

Myers gaze shifts to me. Growing up, he was always frantic. I knew that he knew what I was. I suspected he might have been a deserter once, too, but now I know the truth. He's like Freya's mother. Kinjri.

"I thought you would die in Torinne," he says.

"Unfortunately for you, we survived," I say. "And we need your help."

"You have failed already once before. You do not have a hyacerite, the cloud still threatens this country. I am done helping your kind."

I raise a brow.

"I'm not so sure you have much of a choice," Killian says.

"Is that a threat?"

"No, more of a fact," he admits. "As you've clearly guessed, Ereon has the hyacerite. But you don't know what happened in Torinne."

He stares at the space between the two of us. Aside from the occasional rock of his chair, he remains motionless. "The girl is not with you. Nala's child."

"We're looking for her," I say. "Torinnian rebels took her."

"I cannot help you. I do not know where she is."

"That's not why we're here." I move forward into the room, stepping over a fallen bookcase. "In the mountains, when Freya touched the hyacerite, something happened. It... all we know is that the hyacerite doesn't hold any power anymore."

His eye twitches. "Impossible."

"He's telling the truth," Killian says. "We saw it. Ereon knew it too. It's why he didn't hang us. He thought we had done something to the hyacerite, rendering it powerless."

"She is human. It is impossible."

"Her mother was Kinjri."

"And her father was human," he says, tone sour. "Only full blooded Kinjri can take power that has been transferred to hyacerite and live to tell the tale." His eyes dart between us. "Have you seen her since? Are you sure she is alive?"

For the first time since I've met him, Killian seems speechless. His face draws blank, mouth opening and then closing. "She is alive. She has to be," I press. "Deserters saw her."

"I thought you weren't with the deserters anymore."

"I'm not."

"And you trust what they have said to you?"

I falter, unable to think of a response.

"Nala was the most powerful kinjri I ever knew," he says. "If her child isn't already dead, it won't be long before she is. No human can withstand a power like that. It will consume her."

His words send dread through my stomach. I turn to look at Killian, but his expression remains frozen, eyebrows pulled together as he stares at Myers.

"How do we take it out of her?" Killian asks, all humour from his tone evaporated. Myers doesn't answer. Killian steps forward. "Tell us."

"You can't."

He looms over Myers. "Tell the truth." Myers doesn't respond. "I'll ask one more time. How do we take it out of her?" When Myers presses his lips together in response, Killian is moving before I can even blink. His hand grips Myers by the neck of his shirt, holding him up against the wall.

"Killian! Let him go." I demand. "He doesn't know anything!"

"He's lying," Killian seethes. "He knows how to help but he's lying." He slams Myers so forcefully against the wall I flinch. "You want Nala's daughter to die? The woman you loved?"

He chokes a response. "Nala would want the cloud to be destroyed."

"And if Freya dies, the cloud does too, right?" He slams Myers against the wall. "Right?"

"I..." Myers pants. "Kill me. If you must, I-I cannot help you."

Blood pools in his cheeks, his eyeballs look ready to burst from his skull. Killian's arms bugle in his shirt at the strength at which he holds Myers up, chest rising and falling.

My heart hammers in my chest, but I force myself to remain calm. "Let him go, Killian," I say, voice low.

The seconds tick by in tense silence. All of my training urges me to stay put, not to risk interfering with an angry shifter, but I shove it to the back of my mind and step forward to put a hand on his shoulder. His eyes, blazing and narrowed dart towards me with a murderous glare.

"Let him go."

Killian holds my gaze for several more seconds before turning back to Myers. "This isn't over."

He drops him, careless as Myers falls in a heap on the ground, and storms out of the cabin, leaving a trail of fallen books in his path. I turn to stare at Myers, collecting himself off the ground as he rises and brushes himself off. He notices me watching, glancing up to meet my gaze.

My rage burns hot as I stare at him, but I keep myself in check.

"If she dies because you didn't help us," I say, keeping my voice low, "you'll find yourself wishing he did just kill you."

I turn on my heel and follow Killian out.