The air burned with tension and cold.
Lilith gripped the ancient blade tighter in her palm, her breath ragged, every sense screaming.
The Ash Wight loomed before her, its body a living abomination of grief and darkness. Smoke and bone, malice and sorrow. Its eyes—if they could be called that—burned not with fire but with the residual hatred of a thousand buried screams.
Aria stood beside her, eyes glowing as she fought the dizziness from the earlier psychic assault. Blood trickled down her lip, staining her pale chin. Caleb groaned from where he lay crumpled near the broken wall. Cyrus was still unmoving near the shattered column. The sanctuary that had once been a place of peace now stood desecrated by the presence of something older and crueler than nightmares.
The Wight reached again.
