Lungs burned. A raw, scraping fire that clawed at the back of his throat with every ragged inhale. Roots snagged at his boots, the forest floor a treacherous tangle of shadow and rot, but he did not slow. He could not. The compulsion was a physical weight, a spectral hand shoving him deeper into the gloom.?

  Moonlight shattered against the canopy above, raining down in pale disjointed slivers. No sanctuary existed behind him. Only the smoke of Thicketon, and the memory of iron giants trampling the world into mud.?

  Move.

  The command pounded in his skull, drowning out the whine of his own blood. If he stopped, the metal beasts would find him. Their grinding treads had already chewed through the village, their weapons turning neighbors into red mist. He stumbled, knees striking the earth, but the force behind his ribs jerked him upright before he could scream. It pulled him like a hooked fish.?

  Fog rolled in, thick and unnatural. It tasted of copper and old rain. It swallowed his feet, then his knees, erasing the ground until he marched through a sea of gray nothingness.

  ‘At least they won't be able to find me in this,’ the thought surfaced, fragile and fleeting.

  He offered that silent plea to the Dragons, to the Reds who claimed to protect them, and forced another step. Branches whipped his face, unseen in the murk, drawing stinging lines across his cheeks. The weariness was no longer a sensation, but a state of being. His heart hammered a frantic, irregular rhythm against his ribs, a bird trapped in a cage of bone.?

  One more step, and the cage broke.

  The world tilted, rushing up to meet him. Impact drove the air from his lungs, and he lay there, face pressed into the damp mold of leaves. Darkness, heavier than the night, poured into his vision.

  “I can't...”

  The murmur died on his lips. He chased the rhythm of breath—in, out, in—but the silence stretched, endless and absolute.

  ***

  A rooster crowed. The sound sharp, and piercing the veil of his nightmare.

  Amon jolted upright, a gasp tearing from his throat. Sweat slicked his skin, cooling rapidly in the morning air. Beside him, the bed dipped.?

  "Amon?"

  Magda. Her voice a balm, rough with sleep, but laced with that familiar grounding concern. She reached for him, her fingers brushing his trembling hand.?

  A dream? By the Scales, was it all just a madness of the mind?

  He turned to her, desperate to see the crease between her brows, the warmth in her eyes. But the memory crashed into him. The shriek of tearing metal, the heat of the fires, the way old Kir had looked when the iron foot crushed the farmhouse.?

  "You died," he whispered, the truth a stone in his gut.

  Magda frowned, as her hand laid upon his chest. "Amon, what nonsense. Died? You had a bad dream dear. Lie back."

  He gripped her wrist, and then his fingers passed through her flesh, as if they were smoke going through a grate.

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  Amon recoil, scrambling back, but there was no bed behind him. No cottage. No Magda.

  "I must know why," he breathed, the words hollow in the silent forest.

  The illusion fractured, and the bedroom dissolved into swirling mist. Invigorated by a sudden, jarring clarity, Amon stood. He felt light, and untethered. The exhaustion that had hounded him was gone, replaced by a cold, vibrating energy.

  He looked down.

  A corpse lay at his feet.

  It was a ruin of a man. Sun-kissed skin turned gray and waxy, charcoal hair matted with sweat and pine needles. The clothes were his, tattered and homespun, stained with mud and dried blood. The shoes were split at the seams.?

  His corpse.

  "By the Reds!" The oath spilled out, but it carried no sound, only the intent of speech.?

  He circled the body, saw the face was slack, eyes sunken and rimmed with bruises darker than the forest shadows. Lips cracked and white, parched from a thirst that would never be quenched.

  "I ran until the heart stopped," he realized, a dry, humorless chuckle ghosting through his mind. "Dead of exhaustion. A fitting end for a farmer running from war."?

  According to the priests, his Soul should be ascending. If worthy, he would be drifting toward the great heat of the Dragon's breath, or if not, to unknown places. Yet he remained. Here. Staring at his own empty shell in a fog-choked forest.

  Something rustled.

  Not the wind, no, the undergrowth parted, and a fox stepped into the clearing.

  A nightmarish thing, it ribs showed through patchy fur, and where eyes should have been, pools of black ichor glistened. It moved with a fluid, impossible grace, ignoring the density of the fog.?

  More shapes emerged from the gloom. Skeletons of squirrels, hares, and birds, their bones bound together by that same tar-like substance. They gathered around his body, a silent, morbid congregation.

  The fox looked up. Its tar-pits fixed on Amon’s spectral form.

  ‘It sees me.’

  A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature settled in his chest. The fox lowered its head and nudged his corpse. A drop of the black fluid fell from its eye socket, landing on his dead cheek.

  Amon watched, fascinated and horrified, as the tar didn't run off but sank into the skin. It wove beneath the surface, a dark infection spreading through the veins.?

  His dead hand twitched.

  A shockwave of sensation slammed into his ghostly limb.

  Strings of pale, silver light erupted from the corpse, lashing out like whips. They coiled around his waist, his arms, his throat. They pulled.

  No.

  He struggled, planting phantom heels against the air, but the tether was iron-strong. He was dragged down, knees hitting the dirt, chest forcing toward the chest of the cadaver.

  ‘I will not return to that broken thing!’

  The resistance meant nothing. He was sucked into the cold, stiff flesh.

  It was like plunging into a frozen lake. The darkness was absolute, suffocating. Then, sensation returned—dull, distant, and wrong. He felt the hard earth pressing against his palms, but there was no warmth. He felt the weight of his own limbs, heavy as stone.

  Amon opened his eyes.

  The world was sharp, high-contrast, stripping away the fog's mystery. He looked at his hand. A dark vein of tar pulsed beneath the pale skin of his thumb.?

  He tried to gasp, but his lungs sat still in his chest.

  Breathe. You must breathe to speak.

  He forced the diaphragm to contract. Air rushed in, cool and unnecessary.

  "What..." His voice was a rasp, grinding like stones. He focused on the fox, which sat haunches-down, watching him with expectant, liquid eyes. "What now? Are you the one who pulled me here?"

  The fox hesitated, then slowly shook its head. It turned, flicking its tail, and gestured with a paw toward the deeper, darker heart of the forest.

  "My answers are there?"

  The fox nodded.

  Around them, the other bone-creatures scattered, vanishing into the brush as if dismissed. Amon pushed himself up. His joints clicked, but the fatigue was gone. In its place was a cold, driving purpose.

  Thicketon was ash, Magda—his beloved wife—was gone. But he was here, and the need that had dragged him to his death still pulled, stronger now than the grave itself.?

  He took a step, no longer breathing, and followed the fox into the mist.