Page 22 of Lich's Bride

Slowly, carefully, I begin to weave my own magic into the matrix, following the complex equations and formulae laid out in the texts before me. It's delicate work, requiring intense focus and precision. One wrong move, one misplaced decimal or errant gesture, and I could send the whole thing unraveling like a snagged sweater.

I lose myself in the dance of numbers and sigils, the rest of the world fading away until there is nothing but the wards and the steady, metronomic beat of my own heart.

The sun tracks slowly across the sky, the shadows of the crenellations stretching and warping around me, but I scarcely notice.

It's only when a flicker of movement catches the corner of my eye that I blink, surfacing from my trance with a small start. Glancing down at the castle grounds far below, I spot a small group of creatures gathering at the treeline - fluffy little things with big, liquid eyes and twitching noses. They look like a cross between a rabbit and a puppy, all soft fur and oversized paws.

I can't help but smile at the sight of them, their presence a welcome spot of levity amidst the solemn weight of my task.

I raise a hand to wave at them, a friendly greeting...

And then I freeze, a sudden frisson of unease prickling down my spine.

Something isn't right.

Those creatures... There's something off about them, something that sets my magical senses tingling like a mouthful of pop rocks.

Frowning, I start to turn back to my work... but an odd sound stops me dead. It's a low, bone-deep hum, a vibration that seems to come from the very stones beneath me. I can feel it in my teeth, in the marrow of my bones, a subsonic thrum that makes my stomach clench and roil.

The creatures are moving closer now, slinking out of the shadows of the trees with a predatory grace that belies their cute, cuddly appearance. Their eyes, once limpid and adorable, now glint with a feral, hungry light. And then it hits me, a blistering flash of horror and self-recrimination. The wards... in my tinkering, my arrogant belief in my own skill, I've left a gap.

A hole, just big enough for something small and seemingly harmless to slip through.

Something like the creatures now stalking towards the castle with malevolent intent.

Panicked, I lunge for my notebooks, my eyes flying over the diagrams as I try to pinpoint my exact error. There! A slight miscalculation in the harmonics of the outer ward, a fluctuation in the magical frequencies that's left a narrow band of vulnerability.

I hurl myself into the working, my fingers flying over the pages as I try to patch the hole, to slam the metaphysical doors before it's too late. But even as I pour every ounce of my strength, my skill into the effort, I can hear the hum rising, feel the ground beginning to shudder and shake beneath the onslaught of fell energies.

They're coming. The creatures, the true face of the enemy, hidden until now behind a mask of twisted innocence. I can hear them skittering and chittering, a rising tide of nightmare sounds that sends icy tendrils of terror winding through my guts. I risk a glance over the parapet and immediately wish I hadn't.

The cute, fluffy veneer has melted away like mist beneath the sun, revealing the horrors beneath the twisted, gibbering things that feed on nightmares with too many limbs and mouths that gape like ragged wounds. They swarm over the grounds like a living tide, skittering up the walls with a terrible, inevitable purpose.

Straight towards me.

I throw up a shield on pure instinct, a crackling dome of arcane energy that springs into being around me just as the first of the creatures reaches the ramparts. It slams into the barrier with a sickening thud, squalling in fury as its misshapen body splatters.

There’s more and more and more coming, dozens, hundreds, a seething mass of corrupted flesh and malevolent intent. They hurl themselves at my shield, scratching and clawing and gnashing, the sound like nails on a chalkboard amplified a thousandfold.

I can feel my hold on the spell starting to slip, my reserves beginning to flag under the relentless onslaught. I can't keep this up, not alone, not against so many. But what choice do I have?

This is it.

I’m dying…

My grand adventure cut tragically short, and for what?

Malachar. His name is a desperate prayer in my mind, a frantic plea screamed into the void. I reach out with every fiber of my being, with every scrap of my remaining power, sending my need, my terror arrowing through the connection that binds us, heart to heart and soul to soul.

Please, my love. Please hear me. I need you. I need...

Something gives, a sickening lurch like a bone slipping from its socket. A scream tears its way up my throat as I feel my shield shatter, the backlash slamming into me like a fist of pure force…. I go sprawling, the world tilting crazily around me, the creatures surging forward in a wave of chittering, squalling hunger.

After all the trials and triumphs, the laughter and the tears, the love and the loss. To fall here, alone, torn to shreds by these twisted mockeries of nature...

I close my eyes, bracing for the first slash of jagged claws, the first rending bite of needle-sharp teeth...

17

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