Adeleya whispers a chant, summoning a magical light as we rush to Lothar’s side. Even as the magic is realized, she dispels only a small fraction of the darkness which claws away at the edges of my sight like a living thing angered.

The storm growls angrily overhead, and the pouring rains blind just as easily as the darkness itself. The hair on my arms and legs stands upright and shocks run along my skin like the soft breath of the stalker watching us.

There are monsters out tonight that dare to challenge the fury of the storm.

“They’re out there,” Lothar waves his sword out into the town. “They hit fast and retreated!”

He’s bleeding from the small gap to the side of his breastplate. I’d never be able to hit such a small target, but someone managed to get him there in the middle of a fight?

It’s not a lethal injury, but if left alone it could weaken him. Many hunters fight this way, with small cuts that bleed the victim dry.

“I’ve got you.” I flush him through with enough healing to keep him ready for the fight ahead, the bandits are still out there somewhere and it’s only going to get worse.

“How many were there?” Theo asks, holding his sword up and ready, preparing to face the enemy whenever they appear.

“I couldn’t see,” Lothar says. “It’s like the shadow was moving and… I don’t know. It was wrong, Theo. He was wearing a fucking face.”

“A face…?”

“It was a mask but… I don’t know, something was wrong with it. Shit.”

“Stay on guard,” Theo warns us, shifting his grip on his weapon. “Adeleya spread the light and be ready to cast.”

Something about the air tastes wrong, corrupted, but almost in a familiar way. It’s a fear, like the cold of winter cutting deep into my bones even as Midnight clings close to my side.

The terrible rains cut through my cloak, colder than the blizzards that rage down from the mountains. The air hangs heavy, like a blanket over us.

Light brightens the town for but a moment as angry bolts of electricity blast through the sky above.

A shadow stands in the street opposite us, wearing a mask made of bones and skin. Its eyes glow faintly even through the torrential rains.

A hand presses into my chest and squeezes my heart. I can’t breathe. Ice spreads through my mind, and if my feet were not frozen in place I know I’d turn and run.

Focus.

Fight.

I grip my weapon tight.

Three others stand behind him, but they are not the same. Their eyes do not glow, and they are not nearly so terrible.

They’re dressed black as the shadows, and when the lightning is gone they fade entirely from reality. The darkness moves as if to embrace them, and they’re gone again.

Adeleya’s light is pressed too close, and I can only barely peer beyond my own feet.

“Stand ready!” Theo shouts, and the others break from their frozen state.

Hollow laughter rises through the rain, taunting us and tightening its grip around our hearts.

A shadow creeps up behind Lothar, and I swing a crushing blow down at it. My sword slams into the ground, spraying water everywhere from the puddle below.

The shadow retreats so quickly that I can’t be sure if it was real or not.

Others play at the edges of my sight, so many that I know they can’t all be real. Dozens of shapes, not quite people, but not quite illusions of my own imagining either.

“Illusion magic!” Theo cries out through the roaring rains. “Be careful!”

“My light magic isn’t strong enough to dispel them!” Adeleya shouts, swearing quietly to herself and gripping her staff harder still.

I need to protect her.

I need to be strong.

I growl, glaring into the shadows that dare to threaten her. I will not let them hurt her. I will not let them take this chance away from me.

These mercs will be my family. I will find my home, and I will not let it be taken away again.

Glowing purple eyes shine bright from the shadows behind Theo. I strike fast, smashing my sword down on the monster. The figure glances down at me and lifts a single hand.

My arms jolt and my feet rise off the ground as my sword comes to a stop.

He caught it.

Without even moving a step, he caught it.

His mask, a face pulled taught on a frame of bones, pulses with terrible power. Dread courses through me like a physical thing, it stiffens in my veins and wraps around my hands like a taught rope. It fills my throat, making lead from the air in my lungs.

I will not die.

I’ve screamed into the uncaring abyss, burning alive for what seemed like years. I’ve fought monsters far stronger than me, and I’ve torn myself from the grips of death itself.

“I won’t die!” I scream, pulling on my sword, sliding under his arm and thrusting a hand into his guts. Or, I try to.

The creature slips past me, fluid as water flowing down a creek. I try to grab him but he slides past my reaching fingers.

Theo spins and slashes, the sword gliding through the air a hair’s breadth from the blade’s edge.

The monster laughs, walking on shadows and fading away into the night. There were dozens of opportunities for the monster to counterattack, especially given that it could so easily dodge us.

He outclasses us.

We’re rabbits being toyed with, and there’s nothing we can do to beat this thing.

The violet-eyed monster laughs as he fades away.

Before the fact can settle in, the three figures tear themselves from the shadows that disguised them.

They move quick, faster than anything, their short swords and knives slicing into Lothar while he raises a sword and shield to fend them off. Nadia steps in with a pair of axes, hacking at the bandits even as they retreat into the shadows.

I step close to heal his injuries, expecting them to catch me, but they don’t.

He’s been cut through in the arteries of his arms and legs. It’s easy to heal.

Too easy.

They could have harassed us, and made it difficult to find a chance to heal him. They knew I was the healer, they would have been watching us when Adeleya and I arrived.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“They’re playing with us,” I say. “Like the black cats on the mountain. They paralyse their prey and torment them.”

“What do we do?” Adeleya asks, her voice cracks sending a terrible pain through my chest.

Theo stays silent.

The rains pour down over us, but the enemy stays hidden. Watching us, letting us stew in our own helplessness.

I could go all out, it’d strengthen me further, but that won’t help if I can’t find them, or hit them. There are no corpses for me to steal and even if there were, my puppets are too slow to catch these bandits.

Sandy is still perched up on the roof, but at best she can claw a person’s eyes.

“We survive,” I say. If Theo isn’t going to say it, then I will. “They aren’t going to let us live. So we kill them, or we scare them off.”

Theo shakes off his hesitation and clears his throat.

“Syr is right,” Theo says. “This enemy will not let us live. We must win this fight.”

The shadows become real as lightning burns through the sky above. A pair of men launch themselves at me, their bloody knives already deflecting my adamant sword even before I attack.

I follow up with a slice of my hand, but the second man easily slices my wrist with his knife.

Adeleya steps in, blasting a burst of fire into the man’s face. He stumbles back and I use the opening to thrust my sword into his chest.

A shadow grips the young man from behind, pulling him to the side and away from me. I charge in, but he’s already gone.

“Careful,” a disembodied voice whispers through the shadows. “This is practice, not a real hunt. Scare them. Set the scene.”

The men fall back into the shadows, lurking at the edges of the buildings and watching us from afar. The mother cat is teaching her cubs to hunt.

“What’s their goal?” Lothar asks, shivering but not from the cold, “What are they after?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Theo replies. “But I do know that there aren’t many who have survived to talk about these people. They’ll kill us all if they can.”

“Shit,” Lothar hisses, throwing off an attack that comes from the side. “What do we do?”

“When they get serious, they’ll come for Adeleya,” Theo says. “We have to be ready to catch them then.”

“Going for the mage?” Lothar asks.

“Going for the fire mage,” Theo says. “Their leader, the monster, we have to blast it with fire. It’s our only chance.”

“The rest of them?” Nadia asks, hacking into a shadow that disappears before it can bleed. I don’t know how she responded so quick.

“The rest are only human far as I can tell,” Theo says, slashing through a shadow only for it to fade away into nothingness unharmed.

A pair dive at Adeleya and we all dive in to stop them, while Lothar slides behind. A third man stabs him from behind before he can do anything.

I slide through the melee to charge at the pair. The shadow turns to me, lashing out with a short knife while Lothar struggles to catch himself.

This time I’m fast enough to catch him, slicing into his chest and hooking my fingers through his ribs. The man gives a shout, sounding human, while I drop my sword and thrust my nails at his throat.

He catches my hand with his knife and without panicking he saws at my wrist where I grip his ribs. I hold on tight, ducking down before headbutting him in the chin.

He barely flinches, but Lothar stands up and stabs the man with his sword. The sword scrapes against my fingers where I hold the man, cutting right through his heart.

I let go, healing quickly while Lothar shoves his sword through the man’s head. It takes a few moments to heal, and a few more to find my dropped sword. Time that the enemy gives to us.

“They’re fast!” Lothar hisses, glaring at the corpse.

“Magic,” Theo says. “They’ve balanced body strengthening with some nature of speed enhancing magics. Be careful they don’t flank you.”

“Why aren’t they going inside?” Adeleya asks. “It wouldn’t be hard to hit the house from another side, so why aren’t they?”

“They weren’t taking us seriously,” Theo says glancing at the corpse. “Now… now they might.”

The darkness laughs at us, genuinely amused.

“You so nearly understand,” The violet-eyed figure flows into the shadows behind us, but it’s not him. It’s a lie.

Lothar dives towards it, thrusting out with his sword but it passes right through. Like a mist, it reshapes itself. An imitation of the enemy.

I watch the dancing shadows around us, searching for him.

“Why are you here?” Theo asks.

“The prey wants to know?” The ghost asks. “The prey wants to know why it dies?”

Its hissing voice whispers, carrying some alien magic. It warps the air; it twists the world.

It lies.

“You’re lying!” I shout into the dark depths. “You aren’t…”

“The little elf calls me a liar?” He asks, “What lie do I speak?”

“Everything,” I say, staring away from the illusions.

Through Sandy’s eyes, I can see him. He crawls on the roof like a bug clinging to the wall. Predatory, vile, but not nearly the image he would make of himself.

“Your voice, the power in the air. Everything here is a lie. A familiar lie.”

There’s a magic here that’s like my own, but not. It’s like a word on the tip of my tongue, a memory that I can’t quite grasp.

I lift my sword high, my hands tremble and terror grips my heart, but that too, is a lie. Lies to make us weak.

“You’re weak!” I shout into the storm, lightning rolling across the sky. Burning the shape of the man as he stands on the house.

If I had a bow, maybe I could shoot him.

“You think you understand?” The shadow whispers stepping down and falling amidst us. Theo and Nadia both move fast, but they still can’t land an attack on the monster.

The two others leap through the curtain of rain right at me as I try to join the fight.

I swing my sword wide to hold them back, but the first deflects it to the ground, creating an opening for the second. I try to hold him back with my hands, but he’s too fast.

He thrusts his short sword out, and into my guts. The monster appears behind me, keeping the others away from the fight.

I grab the blade and try to tear it out, but the man twists it around and it locks in place. My guts burn with a terrible cold.

He stabs me in the chest with his other knife and I barely stop him from stabbing me right through the heart. The first snatches my sword away, using it to block Nadia’s axes as she comes to save me.

The second man pulls away, tearing the sword out of my guts shattering the frozen flesh inside me. Lothar and Theo are trying to defend Adeleya, but the monster barely even flinches at their attacks.

The two men fade into the darkness, one stealing my sword away from me.

The glowing-eyed monster is consumed by a wave of shadow, disappearing from the midst of the fight, even though it was winning.

“Aren’t you scared of death?” The monster asks, his voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

“I’m not going to die,” I whisper, standing up and holding out my hands ready to fight.

“Syr,” Nadia calls out to me, passing me a spare sword. It’s not what I’m used to using, but it’s better than nothing.

“Are you okay?” Nadia asks, “Don’t let it get into your head.”

“Syr is the hunter,” I whisper, trying to believe it. “Syr is the hunter.”

When the black cats come for you, you don’t run from them. When the hungry bears see you as prey, you cannot survive by running away. You show them that you are not the prey. You take their fur, their flesh, their everything.

“Syr is a predator,” I whisper, relying on Sandy’s instincts to find some hint of the monster in the storm.

“This is my domain,” The shadow whispers. “You are perhaps confused, little elf.”

I say nothing, what sort of predator whispers to its prey? Sandy cannot fly through this weather, but her eyes still work a little.

“You should be frightened,” the shadow whispers, appearing from nothing right behind Adeleya.

“Behind you!” I shout, and Adeleya starts to mumble a spell, but the creature slaps a hand on her mouth.

“You don’t use chant-less magic? How foolish,” he nuzzles into her neck, baring teeth.

The others rush toward her but the two bandits stop them, they use their swords with terrible mastery blocking and defending against the others.

I’m the only one who can act, but the dread in my veins becomes solid, holding me still even as I watch him holding Adeleya. I force my limbs to move, but I’m too slow.

“Sandy!” I send her swooping down to Adeleya kicking away the shadows that grip me, and the dread that holds me still.

Sandy flies down into the monster’s face, he bites but only gets a mouthful of feathers. The æther connection between us is warped by the monster and my bond with Sandy weakens until I nearly lose my grip on her.

I crash into them, thrusting my hand up into the monster while he’s frozen in surprise. His flesh rebuilds around my hand, not bleeding at all, even as I stab up where his heart should be there is no reaction.

The flesh rebuilds itself as my hand pulls away, and I can’t feel any healing at all from him.

He’s not healing. It doesn’t feel like healing magics.

Something is wrong with him.

I peel his hand from Adeleya’s mouth, but he’s strong. I can barely move him at all.

He’s wrong.

A familiar sort of wrongness.

A familiar lie.

“You’re not real,” I say, pressing my magic on him. My necromancy.

It floats through him strangely, sinking into him like a fresh corpse. Something inside of him is fighting against the magic, but unlike with living people, the magic still sinks into him.

“You’re dead,” I growl, flooding my magic through him. “You’re already dead!”

“What are you?” He hisses, trying to grab at me. I hold him back, gripping him from the inside, commanding him to stop.

He bares his fangs, pushing down to bite Adeleya. I can’t stop him, but I don’t need to.

“Burn,” Adeleya whispers, ending her chant.

Protective blasts of wind shield against the rain as fires rise from her staff, surrounding us and focusing in on the monster.

We all scream. The fire burns us all, but I don’t run. I won’t let the dead monster escape.

Swirling flames of red and yellow steal away everything. Its roar is so loud that I can’t even hear my own screams.

I lose grip on the monster and turn my magic to healing instead.

“Adeleya!” I scream, waving my arms through the flames trying to find her.

Suddenly the world turns dark, and for an instant it’s like I’m back in the abyss, burning for eternity.

I’m not, my magic is still curing my melted flesh. I’m still alive. I’m still awake.

My æther channels are nearly burnt through, my healing dedicated veins especially, but I force my eyes back open.

Lothar, Nadia, and Theo are still fighting the other two warriors, all of them blackened in places from the fire. The monster is gone, either made into ash or somehow it’s escaped.

A blackened shape lies where she was standing. I fall on her, tearing through her burnt clothes, pressing my hand through her charred skin and into her chest.

Her heart isn’t beating.

Her lungs aren’t moving.

She’s not gone.

She’s not dying.

“You’re not dying.”

I summon my æther to heal her, cutting through my limits and burning.

What if it’s not enough?

What if I can’t save her?

Licking my lips, I press æther to summon my necromancy magics.