Chapter 9
Kaia
I should be panicking.
We just crossed into a corrupted death realm. The sky is bleeding colors I don’t have names for. And the twins? They’ve morphed into actual berserkers—giants wreathed in fire and frost like something out of a half-remembered nightmare.
But instead of panicking, I’m… staring.
Torric’s entire body radiates heat, his skin glowing like forged steel. Aspen’s covered in frost that doesn’t melt, his eyes edged in ice and fixed on me like I’m the only thing tethering him to reality. Every part of me knows I should look away. I don’t.
“So,” I say, because silence is worse and my brain is fried. “This is new.”
“Berserkers,” Malrik says, his voice tight with disbelief. “My father spoke of them, but they were supposed to be extinct. Warriors touched by primal magic, bound to—” He cuts off abruptly, pressing a hand to his chest.
I feel it too, a strange ache that pulses in time with my heartbeat. My shadows coil closer, responding to my unease. Bob takes up a defensiveposition while Patricia frantically documents the twins’ transformation in her swirling script.
“We need to move,” Malrik says, already starting forward. “My ancestral home is east. The wards there might still hold, give us somewhere safe to figure this out.”
We fall into step behind him, picking our way across terrain that looks like black glass shattered and poorly pieced back together. The sky, if you can call it that, writhes with colors that shouldn’t exist, casting sickly light across the jagged landscape. Every surface pulses with corruption, a tangible wrongness that makes my shadows shudder.
“Anyone else feel like their heart’s trying to learn interpretive dance?” Finn asks as we walk, grimacing and rubbing his chest.
A growl that might be agreement rumbles from Torric. The sound sends vibrations through the ground, making my wings spread instinctively. Both twins’ attention snaps to me immediately, their transformed faces turning with unsettling synchronization.
I try not to stare as we walk, but it’s impossible. Torric’s transformation slowly recedes, flames sinking beneath his skin but leaving him… different. His eyes still burn gold, his movements more predatory. He’s like a living forge, contained but still blazing hot.
And Aspen… God, Aspen with frost still glittering in his hair, blue eyes rimmed with ice. His skin catches light differently, like there’s something crystalline beneath the surface. Every time he looks at me, my stomach drops like I’m in freefall.
“Your face is doing the thing again,” Finn stage-whispers beside me.
“What thing?” I hiss back, grateful for the distraction.
“The ‘I’m totally not checking out the twins’ thing. Don’t worry, it’s adorable.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I mutter, which only makes his grin widen.
Before I can defend myself, something screams in the distance, a sound that should not exist in any realm. My shadows snap to attention, Bob herding the others into defensive formations while Patricia’s notes become increasingly urgent.
“We should make camp,” Malrik says as darkness creeps across the broken landscape. “The nights here are… dangerous.”
We find a relatively defensible spot between two massive rock formations. As everyone settles in, I notice Walter hovering near a twisted flower—if you can call it that. The bloom looks more like a wound in reality, its petals black and weeping. But as Walter bobs closer, something extraordinary happens. Where his gentle presence touches the flower, color bleeds back in. The corruption recedes like ice melting in sunlight, leaving behind a perfect white bloom.
My shadows freeze their various activities to watch. The flower holds its restored form for several seconds before crumbling to ash, but Walter seems undeterred. He’s already drifting toward another corrupted plant.
The reaction from my other shadows is immediate and chaotic. They surge forward en masse, attempting to replicate Walter’s cleansing. Bob tries to organize them into efficient cleaning squadrons while Patricia takes frantic notes on their attempts. Even Finnick joins in, though his efforts are more enthusiastic than effective.
“Should we tell them it’s not working?” Finn asks, watching as my shadows discover that any corruption they manage to temporarily clear simply seeps back in moments later.
“Let them try,” I say softly, understanding their need to help, to fix what’s broken. “Sometimes hope is worth a little disappointment.”
The twins, now almost back to normal size though still thrumming with primal energy, move closer to our makeshift camp. The ache in my chest pulses differently for each of them. With the twins, it’s a steady throb, like a warrior’s drumbeat calling me to battle. When Finn moves closer, it shifts to something quicker, chaotic but somehow playful. And Malrik… with him it’s a deep resonance that seems to echo through my very bones.
“Well,” I sigh, watching my shadows continue their determined but futile cleaning attempts, “at least we won’t be bored while we wait to die horribly.”
“That’s the spirit,” Finn grins, though it looks strained. “Always look on the bright side of certain doom.”
As night settles over this twisted landscape, we huddle closer around a small campfire. The flames cast eerie shadows that dance and writhe, almost indistinguishable from my own restless companions. Even the fire itself feels wrong here, the colors off, the warmth barely reaching my skin.
