Aelric's shadow moved first.
It lunged at the creeping black ice before his conscious mind registered the danger. Talons of darkness shredded the crystalline raven sprouting from his blood, its aborted shriek echoing in frequencies that made his teeth vibrate. The obsidian brand on his palm pulsed in rhythm with the oozing glyphs on the ruins' walls—thump-thump, like a second heartbeat grafted beneath his skin.
He fled toward the pines, guided by the raven's laughter rattling inside his skull. Dawn stained the horizon the color of infected flesh.
The forest rejected him.
Branches snagged his tunic with finger-like twigs. Roots twisted to trip feet his shadow kept steady. When he paused to drink from a stream, the water turned viscous and black mid-sip, the obsidian shard's sigils glowing through his throat. He spat curses that crystallized into jagged ice shards—Covenant Shards, the raven's voice corrected, its tone dripping with amusement.
At midday, the shadow betrayed him.
It froze mid-stride as Aelric approached a boundary stone carved with three ravens. His body lurched forward, knees scraping across weathered sigils. Blood welled—then froze—as the stone drank his pain.
"Child of Ashspire."
The voice came from everywhere. Chains clinked as a hunched figure emerged from the stone itself, robes stitched with censored scriptures. The monk's eyes were sewn shut with silver thread, but his face turned unerringly toward Aelric's shadow.
"Your stench precedes you," the monk rasped. Iron shackles slithered from his sleeves, glowing with imprisoned starlight. "The dead cry out through your stolen covenants."
Aelric's shadow twitched—no, it was reaching for the chains.
"Wait—"
The monk struck. Chains snapped like vipers, only to recoil when they grazed Aelric's frozen blood. The metal screamed where black ice spread, fractals consuming celestial engravings.
"Impossible..." The monk's stitches strained as hidden eyes tried to open. "Only a Shadowlord could corrupt the Chains of Atonement—"
Aelric's shadow struck.
Darkness sheared through the monk's left arm. The severed limb hit the ground as hollow ceramic, spilling sand instead of blood. The monk collapsed into a coughing fit, laughing through ruptured lungs.
"You carry the Shattered Covenant's brand!" He wheezed, crumbling to dust. "The Ravens Three will feast on your—"
A gust scattered his remains. The chains dissolved into moths made of starlight.
Only then did Aelric notice his shadow's new silhouette—broader shoulders, longer claws, a crown of jagged ice forming above its head.
The raven's voice split into dual tones:
"Kill the next one quicker," hissed the deeper register.
"Run east before the bloodmoon rises," urged a melodic counterpoint.
His shadow pointed toward distant lightning-lit peaks.