"Run."
Kael's voice was low, urgent, and absolute.
Sienna didn't argue. She adjusted Aldric's weight in her arms, ignoring the way her muscles screamed in protest. He was getting heavier, his breaths shallower. Too shallow. Too fragile.
They weren't going to make it.
But she wouldn't accept that.
The cold night pressed in around them, thick and unnatural. The trees stretched higher, their twisted limbs clawing at the sky, as if the forest itself had shifted, closing in around them. There was no wind, only silence.
"Why do you run?"
The words didn't come from behind them. They didn't come from any direction at all. They simply appeared not spoken, not whispered, but felt coiling inside Sienna's mind like smoke, seeping into the cracks of her thoughts.
Her steps faltered.
Kael yanked her forward. "Don't listen. Keep moving."
She swallowed hard, forcing her feet to keep going. But the voice had already slithered in, wrapping around her, pressing into the deepest parts of her mind.
"You carry the broken one." The voice was smooth now, almost gentle. "But he does not belong to you."
A cold shudder ran down her spine.
Kael was moving faster, his grip firm around her wrist. "Ignore it."
But ignoring it wasn't that simple.
The voice was inside her.
"You could leave him." Soft. Coaxing. "You would survive."
Sienna clenched her jaw, shaking her head.
No.
She would not leave Aldric.
The voice hummed, amused.
"Very well."
The ground beneath them shuddered.
Sienna's stomach dropped as the earth cracked beneath her boots. A deep, groaning sound echoed through the trees, like something massive shifting just out of sight. Shadows flickered along the edges of her vision, long, creeping things that didn't match the movement of the trees.
A heavy pulse throbbed in the air, a slow, rhythmic force that made her bones vibrate.
Aldric screamed.
The sound tore through the night, raw and ragged, so sudden that Sienna nearly dropped him. His body jerked violently, twisting in her grasp.
"Aldric.." She barely caught him before he hit the ground.
His back arched, his fingers twitching. His breathing no longer slow, no longer weak.
Too fast. Too erratic.
His eyes snapped open.
Wrong.
Sienna froze.
His pupils were too wide, swallowing the amber warmth of his irises until only black remained.
Kael reacted first. He grabbed her arm, his voice sharp and commanding. "Drop him. Now."
Sienna didn't move. Couldn't.
Aldric's fingers clamped around her wrist.
Too tight.
Too strong.
Not his.
His lips parted, and a sound slipped free.
A whisper.
"I remember you."
A jolt of ice shot through Sienna's spine.
Aldric tilted his head, eyes locked onto hers with an expression she had never seen before. Curious. Amused.
Kael moved, his dagger flashing in the darkness. "Let. Her. Go."
Aldric's grip tightened. Not enough to break bone, but enough to make his message clear.
Sienna tried to pull away. "Aldric, stop..."
The thing inside him smiled.
Not with his mouth.
But with his eyes.
The darkness behind them stirred. The trees groaned, their branches snapping into strange, jagged angles. A deep, guttural sound rumbled from the earth, a slow exhale from something unseen.
Kael didn't wait. He grabbed Sienna by the waist and wrenched her free, breaking Aldric's grip.
Aldric or whatever was inside him didn't fight.
He simply watched.
Sienna stumbled back, gasping for breath. Her wrist throbbed where he had held her, the skin tingling as if something cold had seeped beneath it.
Kael placed himself between them, dagger raised. His voice was steady, but there was an edge to it something sharp and raw.
"What are you?"
Aldric's lips parted. His voice was the same, but not.
"You already know."
The wind howled through the trees, carrying a single whispered promise.
"You cannot run forever."
Sienna's pulse slammed against her ribs.
The shadows moved.
A mass of darkness surged forward from the trees, shifting and writhing like living ink.
Kael didn't hesitate. He grabbed Sienna's hand and ran.
She barely kept up, her feet stumbling over roots and uneven ground. The weight of Aldric's absence burned in her chest, but she couldn't stop.
Not now.
Not when something else was wearing his face.
The whispers didn't stop.
They curled around her, slipping through the cracks in her mind.
"Come back."
"He's still in here."
"Don't you want to save him?"
Her throat tightened.
She couldn't look back.
Couldn't listen.
Because if she did…