The wind howled through the graveyard, shaking the iron gates as Ziria knelt once more in the damp soil. Her lantern flickered beside her, casting jagged shadows across the crumbling headstones. She worked swiftly, her fingers trembling a little as they traced the ancient symbols into the dirt. Blood welled from the shallow cut on her palm, dripping onto the sigils she had come to know so well. Tonight, they felt heavier, like the ground itself resisted her touch. Like it tried to tell her to stop.

The air had an edge to it, a biting cold that wasn’t entirely natural. Ziria’s breath formed clouds in front of her face, and she muttered the incantation under her breath, her voice steady despite the tightness in her chest. The ritual felt wrong tonight. Off somehow. But she still pushed forward. She had to know. Her thoughts swirled around her mind as she closed her eyes.

As the last word left her lips, the ground before her began to tremble again. The flickering light of the lantern bent unnaturally, pulled towards the growing void at the center of her circle. And then the shadow figure appeared. Once more.

The shadow rose slowly, its form coalescing like smoke caught in a glass jar. This time, it felt more solid, its edges sharper, the darkness within it more complete. A pair of faint, ember-like eyes burned in the featureless void of its face, fixed entirely on her.

“Ziria,” it whispered, her name twisting in the air like a secret. The figures voice still crackled and bent in to two incompleted intertwined sounds.

She flinched. It wasn’t just the way it spoke, low and crawling, like something dragging itself out of a grave, but the weight of it. The sound wrapped around her, pressing against her ears, her chest, her very bones like thick snakes trying to squeeze her to death.

“You came again,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Why?”

The shadow’s form tilted, almost inquisitively. “Why do you summon me?”

“I have questions for you.” her tone was sharp.

It didn’t answer. Instead, it took a step closer, the darkness around it rippling. Ziria clenched her fists, forcing herself to stay seated where she was. The shadow seemed to notice her discomfort and chuckled, the sound like dry leaves scraping stone.

“You seek stories, my sweet little necromancer. But you don’t ask the right questions.” the shadows voice hissed in choir with the wind.

Her heart hammered in her chest, she was ready. “Then tell me. What am I not asking?”

It loomed closer, stopping just beyond the edge of her circle. Its face and shape changing ever so slightly with every movement. The magic glimmered faintly, a fragile boundary she wasn’t sure would hold, that she could hold. “You want to know about the boy,” it said. “You want to know what became of him, don’t you?”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

She nodded, her throat too tight to speak. She hadn't stopped thinking about that boy.

“The boy,” it continued its voice rumbling low like a thunderstorm, “grew into a man shaped by violence. His hands knew only blood. His heart knew only vengeance and pain.”

Ziria’s stomach twisted. She could feel the weight of its words like a shroud settling over her. Like a heavy cloud about to burst down with heavy rain.

“And you know this man,” it hissed, the embers of its eyes narrowing. “You’ve crossed his path, many times, though you do not yet see it. His presence deep within the darkness.”

Her blood ran cold sending shivers down her body. “What are you saying?”

The shadow didn’t answer directly. Instead, it leaned closer, its voice dropping to a whisper. “He remembers you, Ziria. Oh, he remembers the way the world bent when you touched the darkness. When you let the darkness in.”

Her breath hitched. She was only a child when she fel the darkness for the first time. “That’s impossible.” her voice barely a whisper.

“Is it?” The shadow’s tone turned mocking clicking its tongue, the edges of its form curling like smoke in a storm. As it took a breath again the ground almost moved. “You, who call the dead and walk among their secrets, do you truly believe you are untouched by the stories you unearth and seek?”

She needed to know. She needed to be sure. Last night she had wandered around her room, bending his story, his presence in her darkness. “If you’re so wise, shadow” she said, forcing her voice to steady, “answer me this.”

The shadow stilled, tilting its head. “A riddle?”

Ziria nodded slowly, “What walks on no legs but carries the weight of the world?”

For a moment, there was only silence. The shadow seemed to grow darker, its form folding inward as though considering her words. When it finally spoke, its voice was soft and dangerous. “A shadow,” it said. A flicker of a smile where its lips should have been shown.

Ziria’s blood froze. That was the answer. And the confirmation she didn’t want.

She swallowed hard, her throat dry. “You’re the shadow from the story, aren’t you? You’re the one who gave—”

The shadow interrupted her with a sharp, humorless laugh., its voice splitting in two, one low and one shrieking sound. “Oh, my sweet little necromancer, you’re clever, but not clever enough.” It leaned closer, its voice dropping to a whisper. “You don’t yet understand what I am. But soon you will.”

“What do you want from me?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Why do you keep coming back?”

“To give you a gift,” it said, its ember eyes burning brighter. “Not yet, but soon. You will see.”

A gift.

Before she could respond, the shadow began to unravel, its form dissolving into the night. “The boy is a man now,” it said as it faded. “And he waits. Waits for you.”

The last trace of it disappeared, leaving Ziria alone in the suffocating silence of the graveyard.

She stood slowly, her legs unsteady beneath her. The lantern’s light seemed dimmer and weaker now, barely cutting through the darkness. As she turned to leave, the quiet around pressed in around her, heavy and unnatural. Muted and thick. The graveyard felt alive in the worst kind of way, every shadow too deep, every sound too sharp. Like every spirit underneath layed just by the surface, ready to unleash themselves.

Ziria’s fingers tightened around the lantern handle as she made her way back toward the village. Her black hair whipped across her face as the wind picked up, carrying with it a faint, bone-chilling sound, a distant shriek that seemed to follow her. Tonight it was further away.

She wasn’t afraid of the dark. She welcomed it. Thrived in it. But tonight, the darkness felt different. Unwelcomed.

And for the first time in years, Ziria felt like the hunted instead of the hunter.