Page 36 of The Alien's Cruel Starfrost Domain

My eyes attempted to drift shut, but I forced them open.

That’s probably what saved me.

At first, I thought the sound came from the forest—the creaking of branches laden with snow, the rustle of the wind through evergreen needles. I didn’t truly understand what was happening until the door behind me opened, and I fell backward.

Icy air drifted over me, and I yelped and scrambled to my feet, backing away from the doorway. The stench of rot overwhelmed me, cocooned me. I glanced around with a snort of disgust, trying to find the source of the foul smell.

A thick fog had drifted in and now surrounded the cemetery, stopping at the iron fence, as if it could not pass it, and it held in the scent, kept the smell from dissipating out into the forest air.

I turned toward the entrance where the gate stood partially open and swinging on its hinges. I intended to race out and away from whatever was causing the smell, but I froze in place, overcome with terror.

The dead were crawling from their graves.

Some of them had been buried underground, and I would have thought the earth too frozen, too hard for the creatures to dig their way out—but the dirt bucked and heaved, the monsters’ fingers scratching and scraping until they broke through to the frigid cold.

I glanced around, desperately searching for a path out, a way tothat swinging gate. But everywhere I looked were horrific corpses in various states of decay.

I saw them in flashes, like images projected onto a screen. One crawling out of a crypt, its skin and clothing hanging from it in ragged strips. Another stretching out withered hands before her. Skeletons stumbling jerkily, the newer undead lurching. All of them gathering into a horde staggering in one direction.

Toward me.

I heard a low, keening noise that at first I thought came from that horde—but after a moment, I realized it was emanating from my own throat.

As they stepped into the space between me and the gate, I spun around, intending to find another way out, only to find my path blocked by yet another of these creatures. What stood in front of me could hardly have resembled whatever it had been in life. It was barely a skeleton, held together with threads of desiccated sinew.

It wore the remains of a purple coat with metallic blue thread mostly rotted away. Its long white hair hung from the patches of dried scalp clinging to its skull, held in place by a twisted gold and silver crown. Jewels of various colors glinted in the moonlight, an enormous sapphire shining blue over its forehead as if lit from within.

I took all this in with a single glance, and the wordsKing of the Deadskittered through my mind.

The scream that had been trying to claw its way up through my diaphragm and out of my mouth finally burst free, much like the creatures crawling from their graves.

I spun away from the crypt and ran, the cold snow sucking at my feet like mud as I floundered to get away from the creature before it touched me, every instinct inside me screaming his touch meant death.

I dodged this way and that, but in every direction, more creatures appeared—some seeming to drift out of nowhere, others crawling up from the ground as I headed toward the open gate, certain I’d be safe if I could make it back to the tree line.

And maybe I would have been, if not for thehands that burst up and grasped one of my ankles, yanking me to a halt. I hopped for several steps with the other foot, still moving forward, then pulled my trapped foot toward me as hard as I could—but all I managed to do was pull the animated corpse another six inches out of the ground, freeing its knobby elbows. It took the opportunity to wrap its other hand around my ankle, interlacing its fingers for a better grip.

Unable to pull myself away from the thing, I lifted my free foot and began stomping down on the hands holding me as hard as I could. Its bones snapped and crunched under my foot.

In my desperation, adrenaline flooded my system along with a roiling wave of hot fury, and I slammed my foot down again, this time using it to hold the clutching creature’s forearm to the ground. The bones under my foot snapped as I wrenched my ankle out of its grasp, leaving the hand to flop uselessly.

But when I turned my attention back to the gate, my throat closed around a ball of pure terror.

Something enormous moved in the fog just outside the iron enclosure, blocking my exit—giant nebulous wings spreading out and casting a huge shadow over the entire graveyard, the edges of that shadow gleaming with a silver light as if lit from behind. I swallowed a scream, my jaw clenching against it, but still a tiny squeak echoed in my chest.

I was going to die here. I knew it.

Then the shape resolved itself, those shadow wings drawing inward, furling down into the figure of a man.

Ivrael.

I should’ve been terrified.

Instead, the sob that escaped me was one of relief.

I ran toward him and was about to call out his name when another of those bony monstrosities lunged out of nowhere, knocking me to the ground. I landed on my side and rolled over, only to find several of the zombie Caix surrounding me, arms outstretched and mouths open.

I really was going to die here, after all.

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