The next town was a speck on the map. A stopover.
A place to bury the wounded, rest the horses, and pretend they hadn't nearly been slaughtered by a creature from the old stories.
Kai rode at the rear of the convoy.
It wasn't cowardice. It was instinct — keep everyone in front of you. See what's coming. Watch their backs, and more importantly, watch your own.
The forest had given way to broken hills, and the road to Halden's Pass twisted through shale cliffs and sulfur springs. The air smelled metallic, and the wind tugged at his hood like it wanted to rip off his mask.
Which was fitting, since everything else seemed determined to do the same.
---
The town itself was worse than expected.
Halden's Pass had once been a border fortress — now it was a haunted husk of cracked stone, overgrown ivy, and broken stained-glass windows. The only functional building was a war-era chapel repurposed into an inn.
And even that creaked like it remembered screaming.
Rael dismounted first, issuing orders to the guard and exchanging clipped words with the innkeeper — a nervous woman with three fingers and a tattoo across her neck that looked like prison ink.
Kai stayed back, waiting for the soldiers to unload the horses, until he felt the shift.
A shiver at the base of his skull.
Like someone was staring.
No — not staring.
Recognizing.
He turned.
A girl stood beneath the inn's archway, barefoot, pale, no older than ten. Her eyes were wide. Too wide. Like the nightfang's, almost — too knowing for her age.
She opened her mouth.
And spoke in a voice that did not belong to her.
> "Valeria Knox… the dead do not walk unpunished."
Kai went cold.
A soldier brushed past him, breaking the moment. When Kai looked again — the girl was gone.
---
That night, Kai tried to sleep.
He couldn't.
He paced instead, the wooden floorboards groaning beneath Valeria's weight. The room was cold. Not physically — magically. Like something had drained the air of warmth.
Something was wrong.
Not just outside.
Inside.
His fingers had started twitching.
Slight tremors that came and went. Not fear. Not fatigue.
Something worse.
Like… static in the soul.
---
He opened Valeria's journal again, flipping to the pages written in mirrored cipher — a trick only Kai had ever taught her.
And there it was.
Buried deep in the middle of a page, written upside down:
> "If you're reading this… then it worked."
> "And you're inside me."
> "Gods help you."
Kai dropped the book.
For a long time, he didn't move.
Then, slowly, he picked it up and read the rest.
---
> "I used the Thorn Rite. Soul displacement magic. Forbidden for a reason. It was the only way to save you, Kai. The only way to stop what's coming."
> "My body was marked. Claimed. A weapon, yes — but not just mine anymore. The Prince doesn't know. The others can't. If I'd died normally, my soul would've triggered the seal. And everything we've worked for would be undone."
> "So I broke the rules."
> "I broke you."
---
Kai clenched his jaw, breathing hard through his nose.
So it hadn't been an accident. Or an act of panic. She planned it.
She put him inside her body, cursed and claimed, like she was doing him a favor.
And now he was wearing her sins like armor — and they were beginning to rot.
---
A knock at the door.
He didn't answer.
The door creaked open anyway.
Rael stepped in, his face shadowed by firelight.
"You're not on watch," Kai said without turning.
"I know."
A beat.
"You shouldn't be alone," Rael said.
Kai turned sharply. "Why? Afraid I'll slip away in the night?"
Rael crossed the room. "No. I'm afraid you will."
That stopped him.
Rael stopped, just close enough for Kai to see the flicker of emotion in his eyes.
"You've been somewhere else ever since the forest. You flinch at shadows. You stare at nothing. You look at me like I'm—" He stopped.
Kai filled it in. "A stranger."
Rael nodded once.
Kai looked down at his hands. Valeria's hands.
"Maybe I am."
"You weren't… before." Rael stepped closer. "That night. In the tower. You were real."
Kai's throat tightened. "Maybe I was pretending better back then."
Rael reached out and gently touched his wrist.
It was meant to be comforting.
But something under Kai's skin flared. A jolt. A flicker of unnatural cold — like touching stormlight backwards.
Rael recoiled.
Both of them stared at Kai's wrist.
A faint black mark had appeared beneath the skin — like a vein that didn't belong. And it pulsed.
Rael stepped back. "What the hell is that?"
Kai didn't answer.
Because the voice in his head — her voice — had just whispered something impossible.
> "Don't let him touch the seal."
> "It's bound to my death."
Kai clenched his fists and looked up.
Rael was already watching him like a man preparing to be betrayed.
"Tell me what's going on," Rael said, voice quiet. "I won't ask again."
Kai opened his mouth.
Paused.
And lied.
"Just leftover magic from the beast. I'll be fine."
Rael didn't believe him.
But he nodded.
"I'll have the mage look at it tomorrow," he said. "If it spreads—"
"It won't."
Rael stared at him for a long time, then turned to go.
He paused in the doorway.
And didn't turn back when he spoke.
"You're not the only one haunted by her."
Then he left.
---
That night, Kai didn't sleep.
Because when he closed his eyes…
He saw Valeria.
Not in dreams.
Not in memory.
In the mirror.
She was smiling.
But her eyes were crying.
And her lips were mouthing words he couldn't hear.
Yet.