There’s snapping and snarling, clawing and thrashing.
A sharp yelp.
A terrible roar.
And a bright throb of light from the pond as seven glowing orbs ignite. They surge with brightness as a man—no, a monster—throws out his hands and expels the light from his fingers.
Light stolenfrom the orbs.
Stolen from the prisoners.
The winged creatures are blasted into oblivion, into dust, into nothing.
I turn away from the horror—those frozen faces, the vines crawling inside their chests—and find myself facing the pavilion at the edge of the tree line. Only instead of a bench, there is a tomb. Suspended above it hangs a cage made of bone, and inside, a golden orb of light pulses.
It’s not the only one.
There are three more trapped in crystal vials, set inside niches carved into the pavilion wall. Only these are not orbs. These are filaments of light flickering erratically.
I draw nearer, mesmerized by the way they twist and turn, strands of glowing gossamer trying to escape.
Something scuffles at my feet.
Beneath the tomb, a creature with lavender fur burrows inside a nest made of thorns. It stares out from it with eyes like full moons. And inside the tomb, a woman with long auburn hair lays as still as death, perfectly preserved like Snow White waiting for her prince.
A sharp clap tears me awake.
I bolt upright in bed.
Sunlight streams through my window andspills onto the floor, where the pearl has fallen, pulsing like the filaments of golden light.
My mother, in a tomb.
The creature, in Vorat’s lair.
My mind spins, scrambling for an explanation. A way to preserve the assumption under which I have been operating.
My mom is alive.
She sent me that creature.
She sent me those visions.
She was communicating with me from beyond the veil.
But now?
How could she have sent anything from inside a tomb?
I scramble out of bed and grasp the pearl, begging it to tell me what it knows. To show me the truth. But all I can think about are tricks and deceit. The creature lives in Vorat’s lair. So did he send it, then? Did he plant those visions, did he spin a story about my mom and Simon, all to lure me in? Suddenly, it feels so obvious. Of course he did. My mother hasn’t been imprisoned for the past five years. She wouldn’t have survived it. Simon certainly couldn’t have survived for thirty.
I squeeze the pearl harder.
The Hollow Walker consumes souls.
He is a twisted creature as old as the hills, benton satisfying the basest of cravings—his own insatiable hunger. He doesn’t devise plans, especially not elaborate ones.
But then, what is this?
