THE WRAITH SEETHED. HOVERING about five feet above a broad, dusty plain as if gravity exerted no pull upon its existence, its being exuded nothing but mordant rage. If eyes it had and a mortal gaze it possessed, then the entity’s hidden scrutiny swept restlessly over the dry, dustless barrens, from the serrated line of rust-red hills on a sun-spinward bearing to the barely discernible emerald-green line of forest on the opposite horizon, and everything in between. The watcher shrank back from the perceptible displeasure conveyed by that invisible glare.

Even though unseen, she imagined its power pouring forth like a mighty exhalation of Dragon fire, for that was its effect upon her. Instant migraine headache, so intense, tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. Sweaty palms. Galloping heartbeat. She had to will herself to remain still and hidden when everything within her ached to flee.

Such was its dominance, its palpable power.

An army stood drawn up before the Wraith in lines so dense, the bare, windswept red rock underfoot was wholly obscured in many places. To her left, a mighty legion of squat humanoid foot soldiers clad in thick black scale armour stood to attention, their long, ten-foot spears rising above their black-helmed heads like a forest of thorns. In the centre, dozens of ranks of archers holding their long, slim bows stood more loose-limbed, light green of skin and appearing almost organic to her eye – creatures shaped like men but clearly born of the forest. The contrast with the thickset, long-armed foot soldiers was immediate; these creatures stood at least three feet taller, but were far slighter in build. Behind the archers stood ten rows of animals Allory recognised only from legend, hairy forest mastodons hulking nineteen feet tall at the shoulder, heavily armed and armoured for war.

To the right flank of the army were a contingent of over one hundred heavy Darkrhino, again an animal she had only pictured from stories. These carnivorous behemoths originated in the volcanic Du’unksa Badlands where the dominance rituals of the twenty-tonne beasts included splitting boulders with their treble iron horns. They would be unleashed to wreak devastation upon enemy lines. Alongside these were arrayed the more conventional contingents of Faroon snake-warriors, the magic adepts, and diverse companies of Sangalese mercenaries, Morikon sappers and Gelmardu troops.

Yet the Wraith’s anger burned over the vast war host. The sense of oppression bore down far more trenchantly than the full brunt of Middlesun at midday.

Its breathing rasped against her senses, each inbreath causing the sunshine to darken perceptibly, before the outbreath appeared to release the light of day once more. Terrifying for her; more terrifying by far for the men and beasts down below. They sweated, not daring to move a muscle. An acrid scent of faeces entered her nostrils, causing her to gag. Had some of the soldiers down below voided their bowels?

Allory was glad to be hidden a little aside from that congregation, not subject to the full strength of the Wraith’s disdainful fury.

Even so, her light serami was sodden with unnatural sweat.

About ten feet from the Wraith’s inky silhouette, a man she recognised as Commander Garakon shifted from one foot to the other and cleared his throat ever so slightly.

The creature did not turn. Perhaps it had no need? The dry voice lashed out, “These are all who remain?”

“Aye, Master,” the Commander croaked, his face greying with fear. Allory had never seen that colour on any creature’s face before. This was an unwholesome greyish pallor, as if congestion slowly throttled his heart prior to outright failure. “We – we got new conscripts. We’ve doubled our recruitment efforts, as you can see!”

“This number includes the recruits?”

“Aye.”

“And tell me, does the Kingdom of Dormate-kar-Gebaroon still stand?”

“We – we will return to raze it, Master! We must! All shall be accomplished as you ordered, but they – they fought back with new weapons and new magic, Master –”

“Excuses! All I hear is pathetic excuses! Where are my Crimson Raptors and where is Dastaradon, their leader?”

Falling to his knees, the Commander pleaded, “Master, they did not return. Every last Raptor perished.”

An inhumane silence gripped the entire congregation. Did they even breathe? She could not! For the longest time, all Allory heard was the terrified rattling of her own heart, before the Wraith suddenly whirled and the entire army staggered, released from the awful grip of its inconceivable power.

Coldly, the entity hissed, “Walk with me, Commander.”

Garakon coughed harshly before pushing back up to his feet. Pasty with the relief of a man who had stared into the face of death itself, he forced himself to stride after the creature, even though his knees almost failed upon his first step. A retinue of half a dozen Men, all similarly broad-shouldered and clad in massive knee-high black boots, trooped after him.

The Scintillant shifted.

She did not know how she did it, but she seemed able to move in perfect concealment across barren stone in broad daylight, and no enemy detected her presence. Again, the Faerie of the now wondered who this Allory was, this Faerie who navigated enemy lines with skill and confidence? This Allory seemed older and wiser yet somehow the same, partially disconnected from the other who viewed these events or visions with so little understanding, not knowing what it all meant.

Could she be vicariously reliving an ancestral life? Was that even possible?

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I’m Allory. She said it almost to test herself. I am Allory Fae.

Truth. Impossible, yet true.

The Scintillant snuck after as Garakon marched steadily down a short tunnel into a dark, warm cavern. The Men gathered in a small pack beside the creature as it paused upon a ledge above a pit. Though the area was gloomy, the Wraith’s darkness eclipsed it all – not a darkness the eye understood, but something more, something deeper and more malign. Again, she resisted the eerie allure of its presence. She did not wish to be drawn in, but like one magnet to another, she could not shake off the sense of connection – nor could she help feeling nauseated by it.

“Open the gates!” hissed the disembodied voice. “Open them all.”

With a deafening clanking of metal, great gates drew aside from multiple tunnels leading into that great pit, releasing first a trickle and then a flood of Raptors – the same dark creatures she had seen before, but these were three times bigger already, growing at a phenomenal pace. Unlike Dragons, the Raptors had two thickset hind legs but the forelegs were part of the wing structures, meaning that to stand on all fours, they leaned forward menacingly upon the forepaw part of their bent wings. The upward-jutting elbows and ultra-sharp, upraised wing spikes made them appear ready to pounce upon their prey at any second.

Allory noticed immediately that their colour had changed from solid black to a kind of burned crimson in most parts, with black flares upon the innumerable spikes of their bodies, talons, wing spikes and spine spikes.

Dragons-cross-porcupines? The effect was not ludicrous. It was sobering in the sort of way that potential meat might feel sobered to be stuck upon a razor-sharp, two-foot kebab stick and roasted to a perfect char, like these meat-loving Humans were wont to do.

Again, a comparison Allory of the present could not have made. Where did this dream-memory come from?

Before she could settle upon the perfect hiding place, the Wraith flicked an appendage and the men stumbled forward, shouting and cursing as an invisible force forced them right to the edge of the pit, where they teetered. Hundreds of Crimson Raptors gathered beneath, hissing and spitting their hatred and hunger.

“Soon, my lovelies,” the Wraith whispered sibilantly. “Who is the spy, Garakon?”

“The … spy, Master?”

“Multiple times, your reports stated the enemy’s foreknowledge of your plans and methods. Uncanny knowledge, you wrote. Who is the spy – one of these?”

He blurted out, “No, Master!”

No gesture did the Wraith make, but one of the soldiers suddenly flipped into the air as if flicked by a monstrous talon and fell shrieking into the pit, where the Fire Raptors converged with a chorus of hideous snarls and tore him to pieces.

“Who is it, Commander Garakon? One of your trusted men?”

Another man shot away. He made no sound, but the crunching of his bones down below did. Allory rammed her fist against her mouth to prevent any sound from escaping.

“Master, we’ve tried everything –”

Flick, flick, flick! The soldiers arced away into the pit with the Crimson Raptors pounced upon them with shrieks and bellows of glee. Dinnertime!

This time, Allory could not suppress her aghast reaction. Her stomach heaved and tried to turn itself inside out. She clutched her torso, biting back a groan as she cramped helplessly. Stone clinked against stone as her feet kicked – and the Wraith loomed over where she had been a microsecond before, but she viewed its back from a different position twenty feet distant. A tiny snippet of song lingered upon her lips, vibrating at a near-ultrasonic pitch. It misdirected the creature’s senses as the mind probed cunningly at its surrounds.

Again, that sense of dislocation. How? This Allory either had skills a runt could only dream of, or … could this be a dream in which anything was possible?

Barely a blink later, the creature was back with the Commander, who now dangled above the seething pit of Crimson Raptors. Sounding grotesquely satisfied, it purred, “Do you believe you deserve death, Commander? Convince me. What is your suspicion?”

The Man offered a surprisingly calm reply. “I have done all that was humanly possible and perhaps more, Master. This enemy should not be underestimated. It is cunning, finding its way unerringly into our councils and strategy sessions. We even captured a Faerie, one of the Sestruki cannibals – but one of ten we discovered making a merry feast of one of our soldiers. Him, we interrogated and broke, and then deployed as a guard to one of our councils.”

“His abilities?”

“Magical scent, Master. He said he smelled a magical scent, a trace of Fae, but could not identify it.”

The Wraith made a human-like gesture of annoyance. “Aye? And what of it? Is the Sestruki Faerie alive?”

“It seemed expedient to keep using the fellow in the hope of cornering this spy, Master.”

“Commander, you have exceeded my expectations.” The Wraith wafted him back to solid ground; though he tried to conceal it, the Man’s relief could not be missed. “I will permit you to live. However, I will require access to your brain and memories. Time to feed, to assume a new form. Enjoy the afterlife, Commander.”

The Man’s jaw had barely begun to sag when the dark blot descended upon him, enveloping his head and upper torso. Briefly, a violent, indescribably perverse struggle developed as the Wraith appeared to force its entire being up the nostrils and in through the ears of the unwilling host. Even though muffled, the piercing, unforgettable screams he made stilled even the hundreds of Crimson Raptors prowling about the pit in search of any more flying treats. He crashed backward to the ground. For a second the impact appeared to dislodge the attacker, only for it to seethe and stretch like elastic around the man’s flailing arms. It sucked back down again.

The Scintillant could only look on in mute revulsion.

The shrieking choked off. The body heaved and shook as if he tried to vomit but was unable to.

With a grotesque wriggle, the Wraith disappeared inside the Man’s head and he immediately sat up, ignoring the blood trickling from his nostrils and ears.

“Aah, much better. Always good to feed,” he said, extending his arms and stretching his back as if it were the most luxurious sensation beneath Middlesun. “Mortal flesh. Can’t say I missed the sensation – and if you’re listening out there, Faerie, as I know you are –”

Allory stiffened.

“– do not expect me to divulge all my plans in some idiotic monologue. Know this, spy. I am coming for you. I will find you. And when I do, I will destroy you and everything you love, piece by miserable piece. I will have it all – for I am immortal. You cannot outthink, outplay or outlast me. In the end, I will win. I – WILL – FEED!”

His roar shattered the cavern ceiling and sent the Crimson Raptors fleeing for cover. Far greater than any mortal throat could produce, it belled over and through her in a bedlam that drowned out all thought and came perilously close to snuffing out her soul’s music. That must have been the intention. A psychic strike that would destroy any enemy in the vicinity, even the unseen. It slew many of his army outside the cavern.

Yet Allory was no longer present.

She melted into the light, into the melody that called her more lucidly than any other.

For an instant she was in a place where a light moved rhythmically in front of her gaze and Xertiona’s well-known voice chanted, “Remember … remember … you – will – remember … gaze deep into the light, little Scintillant. Remember all that was …”

Allory gazed. Her entire being yearned toward the light.

What she perceived there blew her away. As her lips curved upward, she smiled, “I … see …”

“What’s that? What do you see, little one?”

“I see you … blossom …”