Chapter 105
Chapter 105
Axel
The sky is wrong.
That’s the first thing I notice.
Not just gray, but also flat. Heavy. It’s like someone pulled a curtain halfway over the sun. The air smells metallic. The kind of smell that makes your instincts crawl sideways in your skin.
I stand from the campfire, ears straining. The forest is too quiet and is that…
It is.
Mist.
My stomach turns. “We need to move.”
Elvira stirs under the blanket. Her breath catches at the chill in the air. She sits up slowly, rubbing her arms. Her eyes blink open like someone who has slept a thousand years and still isn’t rested. I want to keep looking at her, but I keep my attention on our surroundings.
A raven flutters down from a tree nearby, perching on a crooked branch just a few feet away. It caws once and then hops down to the forest floor. The mist curls at its feet. Within seconds, its feathers tremble like the leaves on a tree.
The bird lets out another cry. This one sounds wrong. Strained.
Blood leaks from its beady black eyes. Its wings twitch. Once, then violently.
Feathers fall in clumps.
Then it stops moving.
Elvira stares. “That… that was a raven.”
“It was.” My voice is flat. “Now you understand.”
“What?” she rasps, eyes darting back to the unmoving raven.
“The mist is coming.”
She squints at me. “It’s fog, Axel. You’re acting like it’s a monster.”
“You saw what it did to the bird.”
“Y–yeah, but… To people?”
I finally look at her. “Yes. That’s not fog. It’s Dream Court defense magic. Azriel made us memorize every defense trigger in this region, t’ve seen what this mist did to an enemy patrol once–skeletons fused to the dirt. He blessed me and the others of the court to survive it, but you? It doesn’t know you and will burn you from the inside out.“.
She frowns. “And this mystical mist just pops up?”
“Whenever there is an intruder, yes, because this place protects itself,” I say. “And it doesn’t recognize you.”
She watches me for a beat, then mutters, “You’re serious.”
“Very.”
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Chapter 105
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By the time she is standing, the light has changed again. A shadow rolls low across the forest floor, crawling like it has a purpose. The temperature is dropping. Even the air feels bruised.
“Don’t let it touch you,” I warn. “And stay close.”
Elvira pulls her jacket tighter around herself. She is still weak. I can see it in her posture. Her balance is off. She tries to shift at one point, and I smell the flicker of her wolf, but it dies out before it starts.
She swears under her breath. “Let me guess…this mist eats dreams too?”
I give a humorless laugh. “Only from people who stop believing they are worth having.”
We move quickly. I keep her on my left side, closest to me. I don’t offer to carry her. She wouldn’t take it well since we don’t know each other that well.
We follow a deer trail deeper into the trees, the kind Eden used to drag me through on missions. The mist is thickening. Not high enough to be dangerous yet, but it’s close.
Then I smell it.
Something worse.
A Dream Court beast. It is tall, antlered, half–shadow. It lumbers across our intended path just a hundred feet ahead, then pauses. Its snout lifts. It smells the mist too and turns away.
Even that thing knows better.
We duck behind the brush. Elvira clutches a branch to steady herself.
I whisper, “Change of route.”
She nods but keeps glancing at the creature. “What is that?”
“Night stag. Don’t let it see you. And don’t run unless I run first.”
We reroute.
C
The slope is slick with moss and roots. We descend into a narrow trench carved between stone. That’s when the mist thickens.
C
Fast.
Elvira trips. Her hand brushes the ground and she hisses.
“Axel…”
spin. “Don’t touch the-”
Too late.
The mist curls up her left arm, glowing faintly green. There’s a sizzle. Then a sound like skin melting, peeling away.
The pain looks blinding, hot and alive, like it’s eating through her like guilt with claws. She tries to breathe, but the air turns to smoke. Her throat closes.
Her eyes look like she is thinking: I deserve this, right before she screams.
And that scream tears through the trees and slices down my spine.
I lunge, shift mid–air, and bowl her to the ground.
The mist curls higher. It pulses like it’s aware. Her skin peels. Red to white. Blistered. Unforgiving
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14:20 Wed, 16 Jul
Chapter 105
I cover her body with mine and roar, “CLOSE YOUR EYES!”
She gasps beneath me.
The light in the mist pulses like it’s watching. Like it remembers her name. Like it knows her sins.
“Don’t look,” I growl again. “Whatever you do… don’t look.”
But she is too late.
Her eyes snap open and the mist slips in.
It happens in an instant. A sound like a crackling ember surges through the air, and she lets out a ragged, unholy shriek.
She claws at her face. At her eyes. Blood leaks from the corners before I can even grab her wrists.
“Stop–stop, Elvira! You’re making it worse!”
She writhes under me, nails digging into her own skin, legs kicking at the dirt. I manage to pin her down, but she is panting now, feral with pain.
And then she opens her eyes fully.
They are red. Not just bloodshot, but red. I recoil for half a second. Her pupils are gone, washed out by some magic backlash that doesn’t belong to this realm or the next.
CC
She is crying blood. Her mouth trembles like she is still screaming on the inside.
The mist curls tighter around us. But this time it doesn’t press in.
It slows.
And for the first time, I feel something close to awareness pulsing in its depths. Not curiosity. Not recognition.
Calculation.
Like it’s measuring me. Like it’s deciding how much further it wants to reach.
The air around us sizzles, tense and too still,
Whatever just happened… it changed something.
And I don’t know if Elvira’s scream broke the spell-
Or if it summoned something worse.
Like it’s trying to decide whether I’m next.
Her body still trembles beneath me. But her voice is gone.
