The wrongness.
Magic bled into the stone walls, twisting the runes into jagged patterns as the very foundation of Asgarheim reacted to what Serena had unleashed.
Ghosts.
Thousands of them.
No—more.
An army.
And they were feeding.
On her.
“Unnasta!”
The word tore from me as I reached the sealed doors of Bannerman’s classroom.
The wards screamed.
I didn’t hesitate.
I drove my fist into the barrier.
The impact shattered the air like glass.
Ancient runes splintered under the force, cracking outward in spiderweb fractures of light and shadow.
The ward resisted—Gods, it resisted—but I was beyond caring.
The Draugr did not knock.
I broke through.
The door exploded inward.
And chaos met me.
The classroom was no longer a classroom.
It was a battlefield.
Ghosts filled the space—writhing, screaming, clawing at the walls, the ceiling, the students.
Some were translucent, others flickering with unstable corporeality, drawn into the physical realm by Serena’s power.
By her command.
Students were thrown back, dragged across the floor, held suspended in midair by invisible hands.
Bannerman stood at the center, chanting frantically, his red dragon hissing as it coiled tighter around his shoulder.
And Serena—Gods.
Serena.
She hovered above a shattered wooden table, her body arched, bound in a past that bled into the present.
