Page 62 of Whisper of Nightmares

She makes it two steps before a grip, solid and firm, wraps around her arm and yanks her backward.

“Do you have a death wish?” the beast of a man snarls, and she could be mistaken, but she swears there is a hint of fear edging his words.

“Of course I don’t,” she snaps, jerking her arm out of his grasp with gusto, even if gratitude fills her chest.

“Then turn around and forget you ever saw such a place.”

She stares up at the ominous castle of bone again. “Why? What’s in there?”

“Nothing survivable.” His gaze drifts there too, and he takes a rough breath. “One does not enter Náströnd of their own free will and live to tell the tale.”

Euphemia swallows.

With the soul gone, the fog closes in on itself again. The castle disappears beyond it.

Euphemia can’t stop thinking about that glowing doorway, nor the soul that entered into its domain.

Who had it belonged to? A friend? A lover?

A father?

For the first time since arriving, she starts to wonder if there might be some truth to this place—or rather, she hopes there could. She hopes that perhaps it isn’t only a dream, but something else. Something more. A place wedged between delusion and possibility.

Because if one soul is here, there might be others.

He might be here, waiting for her somewhere.

Then Euphemia could finally say she’s sorry.

As she stares after the fading castle thinking about the impossible, the beast of a man watches the fog drifting nearer. His hand tightens around the hilt of his sword; the other closes around her wrist before dragging her away.

Euphemia goes willingly, for there is a fear in him whenever he looks into the fog that she does not wish to understand.

She falls in line behind him, feet shuffling across the meadow with no apparent destination in mind.

The farther he gets though, the more his gait hastens. His shoulders tense. The sword rises at the ready. He looks as though he’s hunting something—or perhaps preparing for something to hunt him.

What was it he had called her before? A draugr?

Rather than being ambushed by the unknown, Euphemia hastens after him and calls, “What are we running from⁠—”

At the sound of her voice, he whirls on her, sword aimed at her throat. “Back away, you wretched creature.”

Terror has returned to him. It quakes in his voice, trembles through his hand, and makes the fire in his eyes burn bright.

For a moment, all Euphemia does is stand there, aghast. She almost doesn’t believe it. Surely, he must be pretending. But again, it would serve no purpose.

Deciding she doesn’t have time for childish games, Euphemia shoves the sword aside and shrieks. “What is going on here? Put that away. We’ve already been through this.”

The flames inside his skull dim with something that could be confusion.

Curious. Euphemia isn’t sure if she says it aloud or not, but she thinks it all the same.

There is no resistance from him as she reaches for the sword and slowly redirects it from her.

“I am no creature.” She regards him with new pity. “Don’t you remember?”

She recalls then that there had been no recognition when he first saw her, either. Even though she had remembered him—down to the exact moment he would appear and the precise words he would say—he had given no indication that he had remembered her.