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Guilt. Then horror. And finally, surprise. Rymedur watched, caged in place as he saw the moment of realisation. The icy terror. The cold, disbelieving horror. Finally, the numbing dread of shock. It cascaded into him like a never-ending waterfall.

Her blood crusted; trembling, dainty fingers reached for the lifeless form of the slain male and begged. Words spurted from her mouth mindlessly, begging the Elvadora for mercy. She prayed to Edre the Eternal for forgiveness. Cursed Andas the Ageless for taking what was hers. Rymedur heard the way her throat burned with sorrow, ragged and raw, from the guttural screams. The heart-wrenching wail that came from the girl’s chapped lips had the larger male stepping back almost like he’d been struck a physical blow. Lost to her display of anguish, Rymedur had forgotten he was there.

What did he feel? Astonishment? Disbelief? Rymedur couldn’t find it in him to care. His sole focus was on the torrent of emotions eclipsing inside of the girl. Why did he care so much? Something burned, cracking open within his chest and reaching for her.

Power, Rymedur realised. He felt the way emotions drove his instinct to call on the magic he felt bubbling inside himself. These felt nothing like his shadows. This power scorched.

Pure, undiluted power rushed like a geyser, bursting from within. It tasted bitter against his tongue when he heard the brittle voice coming from the girl mere feet away continuously beg the gods for mercy. That was when he realised it. It wasn’t his power he could feel… but hers as she called upon it.

Rymedur didn’t know why, but a niggling feeling—a crawling sensation—pulled at him. Warning him. Telling him that this was wrong. Unnatural. Inhuman. This shouldn’t have been possible. Were those his thoughts, or the shadows parroting the words of this unknown being?

Wave after wave of pain—that’s all Rymedur felt as power seemed to emanate from her and crash through him, unrelenting and ceaseless. Yet, she did not stop. A storm so tumultuous, Rymedur’s fear spiked as he felt it rage burning along with it. Had Rymedur really been here, in his own half-human body, the agony and suffering that pulsed around them would have crippled him.

Lightning shot through every vein—every nerve. The scent of burning wood and decaying flesh stuffed his nose, but Rymedur could not tear his gaze away from the girl’s glowing hands as she seemed to pull in the power that visibly buzzed in the air around them.

It was a push and pull. Pulling in the power—the life—and pushing those blood-soaked hands into the male that lay cold and limp beneath her palms. Something fell from the sky in a white flurry, and time passed. What felt like minutes turned to hours until Rymedur was no longer sure how long he had been forced to kneel there and watch.

Hard, sharp rocks dug into his aching knees; he was sure his leg had gone to sleep, only the small pins pricking their way up told him this was real.

Slowly—the movement was minute—the chest pressed against the girl’s palms began to rise and fall once more.

The most horrifying sound Rymedur had ever heard echoed through the decaying forest. Bones cracked and splintered beneath the girl’s hands, crunching as she desperately pushed and pushed against the male’s chest, trying to bring a spark of life back into the rigid corpse.

But the colour never came back. The male’s skin—his hair, every minute detail—had been leached of colour. The male was utterly colourless. His hair—silver. His skin—pale. Wait, could this be who Vasilio had spoken about? Then…

What had happened? The male had looked dead—cold, rigid. A living corpse.

An unforgiving hand gripped her small wrist, yanking the girl forward. Rymedur flinched, as though he would rip himself from the shadowed binds and pull her away from that bruising grip. But he was trapped as the male sneered at her.

‘What have you done to me?’ The rasp of his voice sounded wrong. The snarl that he gave her was wrong.

Rymedur could feel the disorienting confusion like a fog surrounding them, mist gripping at his clothes.

‘I saved you,’ her voice, brittle and raw, shook. ‘I did this for you. Stop looking at me like I’m some sort of monster! I brought you back. I-I didn’t mean to kill you! I… I didn’t…’ Pulling away from the male, she shuffled away. Standing and stumbling back, her body turned as her head shook furiously at the scene around them.

Rymedur finally tore his gaze away from the two faceless figures. A breathless, soundless gasp slipped from his slightly parted lips as his jaw dropped open at the space around them. The once-lush green land of the forest had turned into a living nightmare. Burnt wood surrounded them as trees withered, their roots shrinking and breaking apart. Leaves turned to ash, scattering the forest floor. The dirt beneath their boots crunched with every staggered step the girl took—no longer did the green grass flourish or fresh flowers bloom, but they drooped and perished alongside the forest.

Inch by inch, the colour faded before Rymedur’s eyes. Had she done this? Destroyed everything around them?

Wails of agony and torment echoed through the forest, replacing the delicate twittering of the forest life. Their horror and pain vibrated off the now-hollowed trees as the fauna writhed. Decay permeated the air.

‘Look at what remains of a land once blessed by the gods.’ That disembodied voice shook Rymedur to the core, rattling his very bones as he watched the world around him turn into something hellish and barren.

A sudden thought seemed to strike the girl like a lightning bolt. Whirling around, she searched for something before stopping in her tracks. Rushing forward in a flurry of blood-stained white, the girl dropped to her knees beside the larger male that had been with them. Her bloodied, shaking hands reached for his neck, no doubt looking for a pulse. Had she taken his life, too?

Rymedur felt exhaustion grip his consciousness, threatening to drag him into oblivion. A moment must have passed, and Rymedur felt as if time stretched as the girl searched for a sign of life.

Nothing.

Nothing.

And then… There!

A beat!

A slow throb that pulsed through the vibrating air—faint, but there.

The male lay unconscious, and Rymedur sighed at the relief that washed over the space, like cool water against the burn of his fevered skin.