The crack widened. A thin line of darkness suspended in the air above the valley. It should not have existed. It should not have been possible. Yet there it was. Growing. Breathing. Watching.
Aurora could feel it. The sensation crawled beneath her skin. The Veil reacted violently. Silver light surged across her arms. The threads beneath her flesh twisted like living things trying to escape. The pain nearly brought her to her knees. But she refused to fall. Not now. Not again. Not while Caelum stood smiling.
The returned remained kneeling beneath the fracture. Thousands of them. Heads bowed. Arms hanging loosely at their sides. Like worshippers before an altar. Like corpses awaiting resurrection. The sight made Aurora sick. And then she saw it. Movement. Inside the crack. Not outside. Not beneath. Inside.
A shape. A silhouette. Human. Almost. The darkness shifted around it. For half a second she saw the outline of a figure standing within the blackness. Then it vanished. Aurora froze. The Veil screamed. Not words. Recognition. The figure was gone before she could focus. A trick of the light. A hallucination. A shadow. Yet something about it felt familiar. Terribly familiar.
Lucien saw it too. Aurora knew because his face changed. Not fear. Not shock. Recognition. The expression lasted less than a second. Then it disappeared. But she had seen it. And so had Caelum. For the first time since the fracture opened, his smile weakened. Only slightly. Only briefly. But it happened. The sight disturbed Aurora more than the shadow itself. Whatever was inside the crack both brothers recognized it. Neither wanted to talk about it.
The realization lodged itself in her mind. A question she would not have time to ask. Because the returned suddenly moved. Not all of them. The ones closest to the fracture. They rose simultaneously. Hundreds standing together. Their heads lifting toward the darkness. Toward whatever watched from within. Then they began screaming.
The sound tore through the valley. Aurora covered her ears. The screams weren't human. Not anymore. They sounded ancient. Broken. Like voices dragged through centuries of suffering. The mountains answered. A deep rumble echoed across the horizon. The earth shook violently. Trees snapped. Rocks tumbled from distant cliffs. The fracture widened another inch.
And something changed. The returned stopped smiling. Every single one. Aurora felt cold spread through her body. The smiles had always been the worst part. The thing that made them unnatural. Now those smiles were gone. Replaced by something far more terrifying. Fear. The dead were afraid.
The realization hit everyone at once. Gideon swore. Elara stepped backward. Even Aurora's mother looked shaken. Only Caelum remained still. Watching. Calculating. The returned were afraid of whatever waited beyond the fracture. And yet they continued kneeling. Continued worshipping. Continued obeying. That terrified Aurora more than anything else. Fear had not stopped them. Fear had made them kneel.
A sudden crash erupted nearby. Aurora spun around. One of the abandoned houses at the edge of town collapsed inward. Not from fire. Not from damage. The entire structure seemed to sink into the earth. Blue light erupted from beneath it. The ground swallowed the building whole. A massive crack raced through the street. Straight toward them.
People screamed. Survivors scattered. The fissure split wagons apart. Consumed fences. Tore through gardens. Everything in its path vanished. Aurora reacted instantly. The Veil exploded outward. Silver threads shot across the road. Wrapping around a trapped family. A mother. A father. Two children. The ground beneath them collapsed. The Veil caught them moments before they fell.
Aurora gritted her teeth. Pain shot through her arms. The weight nearly dragged her forward. The fracture pulsed. The Veil pulsed. For a moment she thought she would lose control. Then the family hit solid ground. Safe. Alive. Aurora released the threads. Her knees nearly buckled. Exhaustion hit immediately. The Veil was taking more from her every time she used it.
Lucien appeared beside her. "Stop." Aurora rounded on him. "No." The answer came instantly. Lucien's expression hardened. "The Veil is unstable." "People are dying." "The more power you use, the larger the fracture becomes." Aurora pointed toward the collapsing valley. "The more I do nothing, the more people die." Silence. For the first time, Lucien had no answer.
Caelum laughed. The sound drifted across the valley like poison. "There she is." His golden eyes settled on Aurora. Satisfied. Interested. Dangerously interested. "The Ashbourne spirit." Aurora hated the way he said it. Like a compliment. Like a warning. Like a memory.
The fracture pulsed again. Darkness spilled from its edges. Not liquid. Not smoke. Something stranger. The shadows around the crack moved independently. Twisting. Reaching. Searching. The temperature plummeted. Frost spread across the ground. The returned lowered their heads again. The mountains groaned.
Aurora felt it then. Not through the Veil. Not through the fracture. Through herself. A pull. A terrible pull. Something beyond the mountains was calling. Calling the returned. Calling Caelum. Calling the fracture. And now calling her. The sensation nearly stole her breath.
She understood suddenly. The horror was no longer coming toward them. It was waiting. Waiting in the mountains. Waiting beyond the hill. Waiting near the place Darian had seen. Whatever happened next would not happen here. It would happen there.
Aurora looked toward the distant peaks. Toward the endless line of returned marching into darkness. Toward the unknown. Then she made her decision. "We're going." Everyone turned toward her. "The mountains." Her voice was steady. Certain. "We end this before it gets worse."
Lucien closed his eyes. As though he already knew she would choose that. Caelum smiled. Slowly. Patiently. Like a man watching a trap close exactly as planned. And somewhere inside the fracture the silhouette appeared again. Only for a moment. Standing motionless within the darkness. Watching Aurora. Waiting. Then it vanished.
The valley trembled. The dead marched. And the road to the mountains opened before them.