Private Tales For Whom the Bell Tolls

[Farren Lóthlindor]

With the passing of the Syzygy came the returning light of the moons. The twin eyes of the night restored to their watchful guardianship of the night.

Yet not all had returned to its original form. Magic had been plucked at and tampered. Reformed and rebirthed. Some even cursed into new shapes. Spirits, many of whom had long been tied to towns along the coast, were being reported as left untethered and lost—some even aggressive in their corruption.

But that wasn't the only reason Farren now stood on a cliffside along the Cortosi Coast; having just arrived to darkened skies and angry winds after stepping from the Falwood Stone only hours ago. Her companions talking amongst themselves behind her while she stared pensively at the map she had brought. She could have sworn Davina's town was just near here.

Davina. A cousin of hers who had married a sailor who had spun as good of stories as any from their tribe and they both had ended up settling in her husband's humble hometown along the coast. A place shrouded in old wives' tales and superstition, as any good town of the sea worth their salt, would be.

Farren hadn't seen her cousin in many years, but they had kept in contact fairly frequently despite the distance—a deep love between them that grew from a shared childhood as nomads under the shadow of the Eldyr tree.

The wind blew up a corner of Farren's map, revealing the latest letter from Davina beneath, showing proof of having been folded and reread many times. The contents within were worrying and out of character from her usually fiery and pragmatic cousin.

Davina had described her growing concerns of the upcoming Syzygy. How the fish had slowly disappeared from their nets over weeks. Not taken. Just gone. And that the stray dogs that roamed the streets for scraps of fish from the mongers had run from town. No number of promises for full stomachs were enough to keep them there.

Davina had even brought it up to her husband, Rex, but he was convinced that the way we had been raised had left her too easily swayed by the actions of beasts and the words of mages. In his opinion, they were very often one and the same and did more harm than good.

Through her letter, Farren learned that Rex would not abandon his family's homestead, thinking that beggars and looters seeking easy prey would take all he had worked for, all because they had been easily scared by the musings of scholars too deep in their books and detached in their high towers from reality. And Davina would not abandon him. So, they were staying. Through whatever this Syzygy nonsense may bring.

But the Syzygy had come and gone.

And no answer came to Farren's increasingly concerned letters inquiring on how the two fared through the ordeal.

Farren frowned now to herself. The visceral memory of her own trials through the eclipses were still an unsettling ick that she couldn't shake. Her own body had been made a vessel that bore one of those... one... one of those things. The ordeal had kept her from eating for days after she had returned to the Monastery with Radja. Even now, she did not feel quite herself. Her normally favorite form to embody, that of her wolf spirit, felt too close to the trauma she had experienced. And though Farren's own spirit felt bereft and lonely without becoming that part of herself, she couldn't bring herself to relive what being in that lupine body was like. Tainted, dirtied, violated.

Her chest ached at the loss, for her wolf had always made her feel strong. Capable. One of the best predators the Vale had to offer her people to protect her woods. But instead, the Dusker had been rendered helpless to not only save herself, but the villagers she had originally arrived to aid— and she felt shackled by that shame.

So now, after deciding against waiting any longer for Davina's reply that she was starting to fear would never come, Farren had come to investigate the cause of her cousin's silence. And she had brought people who inspired her to be strong.

Turning from the cliffside after adjusting her coordinates, Farren looked to the waiting faces of her fellow Knights. Blonde wisps whipping around her cheeks as the wind played with the bells at the end of her long simple braid. Her eyes as stormy as the heavy grey clouds over the ocean behind her.

"Ready?"

Aarno Faramund

 

[Aarno]

It wasn’t a cheerful affair. To every interaction had bled a tension and doubt, a dark cloud that drew nigh as much in the spirit as it did in the horizon. It’d turned into the loom of a proper storm now, upon the arrival.

In the air, alongside salt and something sour, was a foreboding quality, teasing shivers of gooseflesh. Or was it just the chill of the seaside gusts, the murmur that was altogether different to what traveled in the woodland betwixt the trees and the rocks. Here even the ground was unfamiliar and cold, rumble of the deep in every layer of it as far as could be felt. He didn’t much fancy his soles on it, feeling terribly exposed despite his layers of soft garments and the firm shell of the brigandine, the hilt of the sword he’d rest his hand on.

Whatever rippled unseen, making a man have the sensation of being this small, he would’ve preferred to neither learn nor fathom. Was it a stretch to wish oneself that lucky?

Attention was draw to the fore by motion as whom led finally turned to face them. Asking in but a word, a resolute tenacity in the sight of her. For fear of betraying his nerves further than his grim expression must’ve, he forewent speaking and responded in but a nod. As for the third, he wouldn’t bother with as much as a sidelong glance to check—

If Syr Faramund hadn’t been ready since waking this very morning, he would’ve well suspected the man had been swapped to someone else in his sleep.

Farren Lóthlindor Faramund

 

[Faramund]

The waters off the Cortosi Coast had grown particularly cold as of late. Green and foamy and full of dead things, the waves washing up on the stony shore below brought with them tales of desolation and despair. Ignoring the stale stench of death in the air, Faramund took a long, hard look at the landscape that lay ahead of them.

Man, but ain't this a shitty place to settle down!

Gulls and carrion eaters circled in the sky above, shrieking and squawking their little black hearts out. Even more nested along the mossy, grass-infested cliff faces. Faramund counted about two hundred before deciding to give up. There were simply too many to keep track of. Besides, there were other scavengers, down by the shore. The kind with arms and legs and no sense of decency. Faramund had half a mind to go down there and drive them off.

Farren spoke up before he could.

'Hmm? Oh, I was waiting for you.' Turning, brown eyes narrowed against the wind, Faramund waved his words away. Night was falling fast, the skies darkening overhead. From what the shapechanger had told him, her cousin Davina's place was close by. Even so. 'Best we were on our way, no?'

Farren Lóthlindor Aarno

 

[Farren Lóthlindor]

From their letters over the years, Farren had learned that the cape town of Urbos, meaning "light at the edge", was a town known for the singular lighthouse that jutted stubbornly from the craggy wave-torn rocks at the very end of one of its crescent-shaped cliffs. From there, it had stoically led countless of the town's fishing vessels back home to safe harbor. Despite even the area being known to suffer a mysterious heavy fog that would roll in for days at a time. Making the fishing port more dangerous to navigate. But the town was an integral portion of the trade route that sat between Vel Anir and Fal'Addas, and thus, the people's livelihoods couldn't afford to be cowed by something as simple as the weather. No matter how strange.

As a remedy, the townsfolk took to the whispered stories of their elders to find an answer. They began to set bowls of cream outside their door, inviting cats into their home, leaving women off their ships, and gold coins in the boots they would wear out to sea, and all other manner of superstitious traditions in an effort to coerce whatever spirits they felt could help banish the fog.

According to Davina, despite her skepticism, it worked. The sailors would often see months of mundane weather and their economy would flourish. But like a cough in winter that just wouldn't quit, the fog would inevitably return.

And so Urbos gained a heavy reputation of occultism. Which didn't bother them much considering their mystical neighbors.

But with a worried eye turned to the coming weather, Farren agreed with Faramund's urgency and turned determined steps against the wind and in the direction of their horses that had been ground-tied away from the cliff edge, her stride disrupting the faint wisps of fog that tried to cling to her legs. "Come on, I think it's just over that ridgeline. It should only be a few klicks more." The last bit she added on for Aarno's benefit as she vaulted into her saddle, already turning her mare to the horizon.

Aarno Faramund

 

[Aarno]

Over that ridgeline.

He hazarded a glance at the direction, face taut with dread. Something like anticipation bubbled under the skin, leaving it crawling, a jittery sensation traveling all the way to the tips of his fingers. He tapped them together, idly. Were they going numb— the cold?

Like struck to silence by some spell, he made to follow Syr Lóthlindor’s example as fast as he was able, if carefully. The grey dapple hummed as he mounted, urging it after Farren with his heels. The horse closed the distance without him telling it to, like it was anxious over being left behind, settling to trail right at the leading mare’s flank. Maybe a little closer than he would’ve preferred, for his own sake.

He dug in his mind for anything to say, to ask — something to remedy the unspeaking that’d taken him. But there was nothing, just the simmer of uncertainty. A chill.

What’s beyond the ridge?

Farren Lóthlindor Faramund

 

[Faramund]

Mounting up, Faramund followed on behind Aarno and Farren at a leisurely pace, his eyes on the ridge and the roadway behind them. 'Lovely bit o' scenery!' He remarked happily, his voice muted by the fog. Bloody shame we can't see any of it. Lóthlindor had warned them of this, before. How the weather around Urbos could change at the drop of a hat, catching travellers out.

Faramund spent a great deal of time out in the elements. A fair few brothers did.

'Does this fog seem... natural to you two?' Drawing his cloak tighter, the dawnling scanned the ridgeline as it faded in and out of view. A pall of mist hung over the jagged stone peaks like a funeral shroud, pulled along by the wind. A thin band of light punctured the swirling mist, but soon vanished. Visibility dropped to a dozen feet, fewer.

Closing ranks with his kindred, Faramund erred on the side of caution as the light reappeared, closer this time. What is that? He wondered, his horse whinnying as the ground grew steeper.

Farren Lóthlindor Aarno

 

[Farren Lóthlindor]

Despite the layers Farren wore for their journey, the chill seeped through her heavy green cloak and layered like frost on her bones. How could Davina stand living in a place like this? Where the sun was never guaranteed and the mist coiled in your lungs, heavy enough to choke.

And there was that feeling of being watched. At first, she had thought she had been imagining it. But instinct honed by years of trodding the woods on paw and hoof had taught Farren if nothing else, to trust when her skin crawled and the hair rose on her nape. And as they drew closer to Urbos, she felt the weight of the air, the emptiness surround her and her motley crew with an unmistakable awareness. It would have been suffocating, but her mare seemed completely unbothered as they went, and so Farren forced her breaths to steady.

Clearing her throat, she looked over one shoulder at Faramund, "I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's feeling it. It almost as if... as if we are unwelcome." A shudder ran down her spine and she turned back to catch the flaring of a bright light deep in the fog. Her brow furrowed and she opened her mouth to voice her confusion, but nothing came out except a slow inhale of relief. Her mare had stopped at the top of the ridgeline, its breath coming in short steaming bursts. Farren tugged her cloak tighter, squinting through the fog.

Below her, the town of Urbos stretched along the coastline, the lighthouse standing as its only sentinel, its distant beam the light that had been piercing the murk.

But as her gaze swept the village, her relief rotted into unease and settled like poison in her chest.

The place was silent. Too still. No movement stirred in the narrow streets; boats bobbed like empty shells in the harbor. There were no laughing children to bounce between the houses that huddled too close together, crumbling along the edges like decayed teeth, their windows staring out, hollow and dark. There was something unsettling about their emptiness, a quiet that stretched far beyond absence, as though the town had been abandoned not just by people, but by time itself.

Farren’s grip on the reins creaked with their white grip. Urbos wasn’t just empty; it was barren, like the bleached bones of a great beast, stripped of flesh and life, lying exposed to the elements.

That tower was now nothing but a ghost haunting its dead house.

She had seen villages abandoned before, but this felt different—wrong. As if something had devoured the very soul of the place and left nothing but the hollowed-out carcass.

The wind stirred at her back, cold and insistent, whispering through the sea grass. It tugged at her, urging her to look closer, but Farren remained still, staring down at Urbos with the creeping suspicion that whatever had happened here, it wasn’t finished.

Her horror broke the quiet, "They're all... gone."

Aarno Faramund

 

[Aarno]

His face crinkled with thought, a frown upon him as he stared down at the village. He didn’t know what he had expected to see, but this sure wasn’t it. So much fog and a lone light above a silence like that of a grave. If this had been a lively little place, once upon a time, there was no trace of that now.

The second worst scenario, if only for the fact there appeared to be no bodies. And when none appeared to have been slain, they’d yet be allowed to have hope. He could do that.

“ There could still be someone. “ He spoke plainly, forcibly so, heel and rein directing his horse to turn and begin away from their vantage. Down the side of the ridge was a narrow little zigzag of a path, easily enough spied, and he took to it with a complete lack of hesitation. Urging the horse forward, he realized himself almost angry, his face a taut mask as he kept one hand on his sword and an eye on what yet loomed below. Like daring anyone to stir amidst the stillness and make themselves known.

“No matter who — We’ll find them. “

Farren Lóthlindor Faramund

 

[Faramund]

Grunting noncommittally, Faramund vaulted from the saddle to land beside his horse. Though he didn't view himself as a pessimist, he found it difficult to believe anything could live in a place like this, let alone thrive. The Syzygy, that most strange of phenomena, had struck the coasts of Arethil hard. Entire villages had been destroyed, or else disappeared off the map entirely.

As for Urbos, well, this wasn't the first ghost town Faramund had heard tell of. Nor would it be the last.

Stepping carefully, the dawnling moved through the swirling fog, his eyes wide and hunting. His sabre rattled at his side, keeping his growing nerves in check. If any nasty surprises did lurk around the next corner, he would be the one to find them.

Passing the trading house, he made his way deeper into the village. Abandoned buildings pressed in on both sides. Condensation dripped from the eaves, the salt-and-rot smell growing stronger with each whispered step.

Faramund could hear the soft clip-clop of hooves following on behind him. Three sets, one presumably belonging to his own beast of burden.

A quick glance over his shoulder made him draw up short.

'Farren?' He whispered harshly, his throat feeling as dry as sandpaper despite the moisture in the air. 'Aarno? Where the hell are you guys?!' When no response came, Faramund eased his sword from its scabbard. The blade was a reassuring weight in his hand. The loss of his friends, though...

A light pierced the veil barring his path, driving back the shadows stirring beneath the eaves. The death-stink disappeared, if but for a moment. Then, the light was gone, replaced by the cold finality of the grave. Was that what Urbos had become, a graveyard for lost souls?

'Well, we all gotta die of something.'

Taking a deep breath, the dawnling started walking. Towards the light, towards the only sign of life in a place grown dark and lonely.

Farren Lóthlindor Aarno

 

[Farren Lóthlindor]

Faramund had been there one moment, blazing a determined path ahead of them, but she had blinked one second and he had disappeared the next. The mist swallowing the hoofbeats of his mount.

Sharply inhaling, Farren's hand struck out to grab the bend of Aarno's elbow next to her, having rode abreast with him down the main thoroughfare. His usual reliable steadfastness had helped to calm her nerves when they finally entered the town. But when her hand closed on empty air, even though she was sure Syr Latva had been right there, the first cold dregs of fear finally burrowed in her gut.

Turning anxiously, she realized that it was only herself and her mare that were left to stand in the town square.

She spun in her saddle, looking for any sign of them. But she might as well have arrived to the town by herself for all the good it did her, for there was nothing but taunting white mist in every direction.

"Okay, breathe. Breathe. Breathe, Farren." She anxiously chanted under her breath. It wouldn't help if she lost her head and panicked. More so, if whatever had caused this— no, she was sure it was now whomever had caused this, knew she was afraid.

Rallying her nerve, Farren took comfort in the fact that Aarno and Faramund could take care of themselves for the moment, and eventually, they would meet back up.

Is what she hoped at least. For she doubted there was any measure she wouldn't take to bring them back. No matter how it changed her.

In the meantime, she would start on accomplishing what they had come to Urbos to do. To find her cousin and assure her safety. Figuring out what happened here would be secondary.

Farren was grateful that she at least knew that Davina lived in a house closest to the pier, due to the fact that her husband was the main fleet captain for the town's fishing vessels.

Spurring her mare onward, she drifted past market stalls that held molding fruit, abandoned wares, and rotten fish no doubt set out from a daily catch. A broom lay flat across the white washed steps of a building. And carts, attached to empty harnesses littered the pathways that she navigated like a maze of corpses.

That unseen presence finally found her again the moment that she saw sails on the horizon begin to peak from the coiling fog. Farren did her best to ignore the weight of that attention as it bore into her skin like a tick, and focused instead on following the increasing clamor of the crashing sea.

She finally stopped when she came upon a white washed stone building at the start of the old wooden pier.

A garden struggled to grow in a bed out front. And there was chips in the plaster and missing bricks from the chimney. But despite the tired way the walls slouched into the earth, there was a cozy charm to the home. Farren could see Davina's hand in keeping it upright.

But her eyes finally caught on the door, and her stomach curdled with dread.

It was a faded purple in color and swung on loose hinges. From where one would hang a wreath, a familiar sight of red ribbons and silver bells hung. A slash of old red blood marring the wood beneath it.

Aarno Faramund

 

[Aarno]

The last of it had been that light brush of a touch on his arm, before of a sudden there was nothing but the fog and hum of empty buildings. Despite the fact the grey dapple beneath him seemed wholly unbothered by the development, merely swiveling its ears, he brought it to a stop. Once it did, settling to stand in the midst of the deserted little street, the silence deepened ever more, seeming nigh absolute. Breathing shallow like out of fright of making a single sound, he let his look rake betwixt the buildings and the dark window holes.

They all stared back impassively, expressionless. Had his fellow knights and their mounts not been spirited away a meager moment ago, he might’ve even felt relieved.

“ Seems like a spell, doesn’t it. “ He dared speak after a pause, petting the horse’s neck as he adjusted on the saddle to dismount. The horseshoe and satchel of trinkets about his belt jingled upon landing, an almost cheerful sound. His eye drew down to them as he released the reins, trusting the horse to mind itself.

“ Don’t think its faeries though. Seems rather grand, this— “ He continued calmly, a casual gesture thrown about for emphasis as he drew open the satchel string. The horse shifted on its place, but said nothing in turn. He figured it understood well enough, by the sagely look about it. His was nothing of the sort, face crinkled at the edges for both the sour staleness in the air and concentrated thought.

“ What would a witch do, hmh? “ He muttered, producing a pouch with a powder and considering it for a moment, before shoving it back. At the very bottom of the satchel, something clicked and flashed with a specular, reminding him of its presence. Maybe—

For when things aren’t as they seem. He pulled out the flat rock, upon which there were four holes, all produced overtime by a pebble that should’ve circled within it, moved by waves. Where the bedrock met the ocean, the shore, the waterline, collision of worlds. Clearing his throat, he closed it in his grip and let the satchel flap fall.

“ Stand by. “ He said to his remaining companion and begun away — One, two, five, ten steps, long strides back towards when they came. The fog swirled about his ankles, taking space in his lungs as he glanced past his shoulder at the horse’s shadow of a shape. Rate of constance — Stable for now.

Breathing in and then out, he whipped up the rock and peered through one of the holes into the fog.

Farren Lóthlindor Faramund

 

[Faramund]

Blanketed in silence, Faramund stalked his way deeper into the seaside village. The cold clung to him as he passed buildings in varying states of abandonment, each as dead and empty as the next. He did not pause to search them. There was no point. Whatever trickery had separated him from his companions wanted him to waste his time chasing shadows.

Frankly, he had grown tired of being another's puppet.

The light was the key. The one constant in a world full of inconsistencies, it breached the fog time and again to guide him onwards, towards the tower, the only place he could see with any life still left in it.

Privately, he hoped Farren and Aarno were okay. Whatever he had fallen foul of had likely snared them, too. Maybe they were together still, wandering to themselves where he'd gotten to. The lone wanderer wandering alone, again.

Faramund narrowed his eyes as the light swept over him once more. Round and round it went, shining bright for all to see. If he could see it, maybe his friends could too? Maybe there were others trapped in the fog, seeking a way out? People like Davina and her headstrong husband.

'Bloody fisherfolk,' grumbled Faramund, talking to himself, as he lacked the company to listen. 'Bloody, stinkin' fogbanks. There better be somebody up there or I swear by all that's righteous- I'll burn the bastard thing down!'

Farren Lóthlindor Aarno

 

[Farren Lóthlindor]

It hurt. Everything hurt.

The sun burned, so they had covered it.

The hunger had been too great, so they had hidden themselves inside the lighthouse.

The fog swirled thickest around the bottom of the lighthouse, clinging to the old stones they had once protected. The spirit stirred within it, lost and broken, though they didn’t know why. It had existed here for as long as they could remember, a guardian, a caretaker. The village had been its heart, its home, and it had lived in harmony with the people. It had rewarded the tokens given with filled fish nets and a lighthouse that never went out.

But now, all it felt was pain. Pain. So much pain.

It didn’t understand. It couldn’t understand. Something had happened. The sky had darkened, the air had twisted, and the balance between the spirit and the villagers had turned to ash, even though it had taken all that they were to stop the monsters of the deep wiping out the village.

But it had warped the spirit, infected it and spread like poison. Every day, they lost a new piece of themselves.

Now, it was lost in the fog, trapped in an endless storm of anger, confusion, and agony. The pain was constant, searing, tearing through them like invisible claws. But worse than the pain was the hunger—the gnawing urge to destroy, to lash out. The villagers had been so close, so vulnerable. It could have hurt them, it had wanted to hurt them, maybe if it rendered them with its great claws and terrible gnashing teeth, the pain would go away, but... it hadn't.

No.

The spirit had hidden them away, deep within the folds of the fog, where nothing could reach them. They were safe there. Out of sight. Out of its reach. They knew only dreams. It was a desperate act of preservation.

It seethed in the fog, watching and waiting, trying to understand what had gone so horribly wrong. Alone now.

Until it felt the stirrings of new life step into their domain. One who was a spirit of many, one who could see what they shouldn't, and then this one— the one they had drawn to them with the light like a moth to a lantern.

This one, a man who was not.

These were not their villagers, and they knew these strangers were there to take the people from them.

The constant ache of hunger surged and they could feel the tethers of their fraying control begin to slip away.

Perhaps, just a little bite.

And if spirits could smile, they did.

************************************

Bursting through the door, the wood smacked against an unknown piece of furniture behind it, and the sound froze Farren at the threshold. Or really, the lack of it. She had expected her cousin's house to be empty, but what she hadn't expected, was the chiming of the silver bells to be absent.

Removing her gloves, she placed a hesitant hand against the cool metal that hung from the door, snatching it back a moment later as if they had burned her. Empty. The bells were empty. The spirits that Davina had pacted and protected. They were gone.

Inhaling a shaky breath, Farren walked into the house to investigate further, her boots scraping against the stone floor, leaving small echoes in the silence.

The house was made of one large room, with partition curtains to section off where the beds must be. While the parts of the room she could see were as modest as she had remembered her cousin describing it. There was a low hearth, the fire long since burned out, framed by a stone mantle lined with small, weather-worn trinkets. There was a woven rug, faded but clean, the work of hands that cared. The light from the fog-dulled window was dim, casting soft shadows over the simple furnishings.

Her eyes drifted across the room. A set of children's toys—wooden animals and a small carved boat—lay abandoned near the hearth. The toys looked as though they had been dropped mid-play. The sight of them made Farren's chest tighten, the tips of her fingers aching with the ghosts of splinters from when she had carved them as gifts.

Stepping further into the room, her eyes caught on the remnants of a fishing net draped over the arm of an overstuffed chair, half-repaired, the fish bone spindle tucked into the weave for safekeeping. Davina had always been skilled at mending clothes, her fingers quick and nimble, and Farren could imagine her sitting there now, bent over her work, transferring one skill to another while keeping an eye on her toddler.

Her gaze shifted to the small kitchen at the far end of the room. The wooden table, placed beneath the single window, had a loaf of dough rolled out on its surface. It was dusted with flour, its edges cracked where the air had begun to dry it. Davina had been in the midst of making bread, it seemed, but the work was abandoned, unfinished.

Farren moved closer to the table, her heart pounding in her chest. Her hand brushed lightly over the surface of the table, fingertips trailing through the flour. Then she saw it—a piece of parchment, sitting beside the dough, half-covered in flour and marked with the faint imprint of a hand.

A letter.

It lay there, unsent, its folded edges curling ever so slightly. Farren reached for it, her fingers trembling as she picked it up. She didn’t have to read it yet to know it would be Davina’s handwriting, that familiar scrawl. The ink had smudged in places, as though written in haste.

Farren unfolded the last half of the parchment to read it and was startled by a shiny metal object that dropped from its folds, it bounced off her sternum and reflexively she caught it with her other hand.

Trepidation flooded her and she slowly uncurled the cage of her fingers, revealing a lonely single silver bell. A free bell at that. As there was no rune carved onto its surface. No spirit had made a home in it yet.

Holding her breath, she finally read what she believed was her cousin's last words.

"Farren,

I fear I have done something that you'll never forgive me for. But if there is nothing else you'll believe of me. Please believe this. I would do anything to keep the people of this town safe.

That's why I decided to give my spirits to the one protecting the town, so we would have a chance of surviving this Syzygy,

And if this letter gets to you, I know you will still come. But that would mean that I had saved everyone. And for that reward, I will accept any punishment.

But if I failed. And you still come looking, I have enclosed my last empty bell. Because I know that you will succeed where I did not.

May mercy guide you,
Davina"


Farren’s hand shook as she clutched the letter, the words blurring on the page as disbelief threatened to swallow her whole. The bell sat like an iron weight in her palm, heavier than it had any right to be. Davina couldn’t have done this. Not her. Not this.

"This can’t be real," Farren whispered, the words barely audible, her voice strangled by shock. Her throat burned, and her pulse hammered in her ears. "She wouldn’t—she couldn’t."

But the letter was real, as real as the silver bell nestled in her hand, as real as the sharp pang of horror twisting in her gut. The Dusker shook her head, as if that could make everything she’d just read disappear.

Sacrilege.

The word echoed in her mind, louder and louder until it drowned out every other thought. What Davina had done was forbidden. The shifters of their tribe had been entrusted with protecting the spirits—sacred beings who granted them the power to defend the Valen Wilds, their families, their loved ones. To carry those spirits with them was an honor, a bond more sacred than anything Farren could fathom.

To break that bond... to sacrifice those spirits... was blasphemy.

Her people revered the spirits, and in return, the spirits gave them strength. To give those spirits away, to make them fuel to empower another?

It was unthinkable. She could barely breathe as the enormity of it settled on her chest like a crushing weight.

But she did it, a quiet voice whispered in the back of her mind. And the spirits allowed it.

The realization hit her like a blow to the chest, and Farren staggered, reaching out to steady herself against the edge of the table. She swallowed, bile rising in her throat as the full horror of it dawned on her.

The spirits—Davina’s pacted spirits—they hadn’t been forced into this. They had consented. They had chosen to be sacrificed. That was the only way something like this could be done. And that's why it was wrong. Because as apart of Davina, her spirits would have done whatever she asked of them. And that included doing whatever it took to protect the people from the monsters that had crawled from the ocean during the Syzygy.

Farren stared blankly at the letter in her hands, her mind racing to piece together the implications of Davina's desperate act. Her cousin had sacrificed her pacted spirits—four of them, per the number of bells on her door—for what she believed was the protection of the village. But if Davina had succeeded, if her plan had worked…

That meant there was something—someone as she had feared—here in Urbos. A corrupted entity, twisted by the power of four more spirits. It was out there, lurking in the fog.

Then what had happened to Davina, to her husband and their child, and the rest of the villagers?

A sharp chill ran down Farren’s spine as her gaze drifted toward the open door, to the fog that clung to the village like a shroud. A cold, creeping dread crawled up her arms as the realization sank in. Whatever Davina had done, whatever she had created—it was still here. And it was feeding on the very power of the spirits she had once protected.

And her friends were now out there, alone.


Aarno Faramund