They emerged from the Shadow Veil as though stepping through the skin of a dream. One moment, the air was heavy and smothering; the next, it was crisp with the bite of predawn.
They stood on a high ridge, the land stretching in grey and gold as the first light broke over distant mountains. Behind them, the shadowed cleft in the air shimmered once… and vanished.
Seraphira drew in a deep breath, shuddering. "I never want to walk in that place again."
Kaelreth's expression was unreadable. "Few who do, speak of it. Fewer still leave it twice."
He turned, scanning the horizon, every sense sharpened. She thought it was paranoia until she noticed the silence. No birds. No wind. Only the sound of her own heartbeat.
Then she felt it.
A pull faint at first, then insistent like a thread tugging at the base of her skull. She looked over her shoulder, toward the space where the Veil had been, and for the briefest instant, she saw something stir there.
Not a shape. Not fully. More like the shadow of a thought given teeth.
"Kaelreth…"
"I know," he said, already stepping closer, his hand lifting in a warding gesture. Black flame coiled around his fingers, hissing softly. "It marked you."
"Marked me?"
He didn't look at her. "The Veil hungers for what it cannot claim. You didn't answer it, but you listened. That is enough."
The shadows on the ground stretched unnaturally, sliding toward them though the sun was rising. Her pulse spiked as one of the shadows seemed to lift from the earth, peeling upward into a formless silhouette that rippled like smoke in water.
Its presence was cold, colder than the Frostborne's steel, colder than her cursed blood.
Kaelreth stepped between them. "You do not belong here."
The shadow tilted, like a creature considering prey. Then, in a voice that was not a voice, it whispered directly into Seraphira's mind: Little flame… we will meet again.
The air shivered, and it was gone.
She stood frozen, her breath catching. "It knows me."
Kaelreth turned to her, his jaw set. "It will follow you now. Perhaps for days. Perhaps for years. But if it steps from the Veil into our world fully… I will kill it before it touches you."
There was no boast in his words, only a promise, dark and absolute.
And for the first time since she'd met him, she wasn't sure if the heat rising in her chest was fear… or something far more dangerous.