Lyra lay awake, staring at the raw wooden ceiling of her hut. Kaelen’s forced smile and sharp, angry words from the morning echoed in her mind.

  His command—“Stay away from me.”—didn’t just sound like anger. It felt like a physical blow. The words had struck her in the chest and left an ache that she couldn’t tolerate.

  She hadn't slept, and in the deep silence of the village, she heard something else: a faint, unnatural scraping sound outside her wall, followed by the soft crunch of boots on loose soil.

  She rose silently, moving without disturbing the cold air. She pressed her eye to a crack in the wooden door and she saw a dark, hooded figure—Kaelen—slipping through the shadows, moving with an eerie, too-smooth silence toward the well and the open fields beyond.

  Something dangerous is happening, she thought.

  She grabbed her bow, nocking an arrow out of habit, and slipped out. Keeping low and silent, driven by the pure instinct to track a beast she couldn’t name, even if the beast was Kaelen.

  The village slept fitfully under a moonless night.

  Kaelen walked through the empty streets, the black bracelet on his wrist humming softly, a low, constant pulsing against his bone as if it had a heartbeat of its own—a dark, foreign heart beating in rhythm with his pulse.

  He hated this walk. Every step felt like a betrayal. He was being guided to the open clearing where the dead from the raid had been laid out earlier that day for the morning rites.

  Near the well, in the open clearing where the dead from the raid had been laid out for the morning rites, he stopped.

  A man lay sprawled on the ground—Old Hareth, the baker. His skin was pale and waxy in the starlight, already surrendering to the cold.

  Kaelen’s stomach turned violently. He did not want to be here. He tried desperately to turn away, to run back to his room, but his legs were lead. The power holding the bracelet to his wrist was now commanding his muscles. He knelt, his hand hovering over the man’s chest.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The bracelet pulsed again—a slow, deep throb that resonated through his bones. A whisper, hungry and commanding, curled around his mind: “Bring him back.”

  Kaelen recoiled, his face tight with panic. “I… I can’t!”

  “You already have,” the whisper hissed back, mocking his denial.

  Against his own desperate will, his hand pressed flat and firm against the baker’s cold chest.

  The air instantly grew cold. A strange, swirling fog rose from the earth—not natural mist, but crawling, silver-grey smoke that snaked over the cobblestones like a living shroud.

  Beneath his palm, the dead man’s flesh grew rigid. Then, Old Hareth’s fingers twitched. His eyelids fluttered open, revealing dry sockets. His lips parted in a slow, horrible, gurgling sigh as his chest filled with unnatural air.

  Kaelen stumbled back, dragging his knees through the dirt.

  The man opened his eyes fully. They were no longer the soft, welcoming brown Kaelen remembered. They were grey—lifeless, empty, and void of any soul.

  The man rose unsteadily, his joints cracking like brittle wood as he tested legs that should have been still forever.

  Kaelen whispered, horrified, tears suddenly filling his eyes. “This… this isn’t… right…”

  The corpse turned its gaze toward Kaelen. A low, guttural sound left its throat, almost a growl of pain. But then, driven by the foreign power in the bracelet, the risen man dropped to one knee.

  “My master,” the voice rasped, cold and obedient.

  Kaelen fell back onto his hands, shaking violently, staring at the risen corpse. He was paralyzed by the horror of his own power.

  The bracelet pulsed stronger, feeding on the fear. “One is never enough,” it hissed.

  Lyra reached the cover of the nearest huts, panting softly. She arrived just as the last of the strange, biting cold fog began to lift and dissolve into the night air.

  The sight that met her was chilling.

  The body of the baker was gone. The dead servant had already vanished into the darkness of the forest.

  She saw only the figure she had followed: Kaelen.

  He was on his knees in the dirt, his entire body trembling as if struck by fever. He was mumbling to himself, his head lowered in a defeated bow, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. He looked at his own hands with pure, unadulterated terror.

  Hidden behind the hut, Lyra stood frozen, gripping her bow.

  She had missed the magic. She hadn't seen the dead rise. But she saw the aftermath: the lingering, biting cold from the ground; the missing body; and her friend, completely broken, yielding to an invisible power.

  Her initial suspicion hardened into certainty. Kaelen hadn't just lost his mind. He was communicating with the dark, and the dark was winning.