Page 18 of Shadow's Heart

Her gaze jerked up when a disturbing scent reached her from a distance. Something immortal but . . . dead. Undead.

Nightside’s stakes are real, she thought, the screams of those burning shifters echoing in her mind. Yet she had to push on. “Thanks for the ride, sorcerer, but this is where we part ways.”

“Even after I saved your life?”

“You told me I wouldn’t be here if not for you.”

His brows drew together, as if he was trying to recall his words. Then he said, “You already scent the undead, don’t you? Nightside is their realm. Ghouls, wendigos, and revenants originated from here.” She’d read about each species in her studies. “You’ll face them all. At leastIwould keep you alive for a time and protect you from them.”

“I’ve witnessed your powers. You couldn’t protect me in a sandbox. Good-bye for now, Silt Harea.”

“I will find you. It’s as good as done.”

“Better hope I don’t lay hands on a weapon before then.”

As she hastened away, he yelled, “Coming for you, little leech!”

She yelled back, “I like my odds, sorcerer!”

As she gained elevation on the path, rain began to fall. Fresh water? Her fortunes were turning! After all, during her studies with her uncle Trehan, she’d read of otherland realms that rained acid under a constant sun.

She quickened her pace, wondering how her Dacian uncles would take the news of her disappearance. Though they all resembled each other with their black hair and tall builds, their personalities varied wildly.

Trehan was methodical but fierce, a book-loving master of weapons. Brash Viktor was a military genius who hungered for a war that would never come to a hidden kingdom. And Stelian, the sentinel of Dacia’s stone borders? He sipped his ever-present bloodmead flask to disguise his hidden depths.

While Mirceo had raised her, these males had also shaped who she was today. She knew what they would do once they discovered she’d gone missing:raze all the worlds to find me.They could appear here at any moment. . . .

Her optimism faded when she reached a cliff. Below her spread an apocalyptic landscape of burned forest and drifting fog. Petrified trees jutted from ash, twisted remnants of a more verdant time.

Lava from another vent must have overtaken a swampy forest. She didn’t know how trees had grown without sun, but then, not every plane was bound by the rules of the mortal realm.

Gnawed bones dotted the area, evidence of a hunting ground. Through the rain, movement caught her eye, figures winding around trunks in the distance.

Wendigos. They had haggard bodies with stringy hair and claws like daggers. Fangs and orange-red eyes dominated their elongated faces.

Were her reddening eyes like theirs? A warning?

More movement. Half a dozen immortal prisoners were sprinting through the ash, attempting to outpace those beasts.

From her vantage, Mina spied a wendigo leap dozens of feet into the air above the fog bank to land on a male—who’d never seen it coming. His screams rang out.

As with ghouls, a wendigo’s single bite or scratch could transform a Lorean. Since the catalyst for a species change was always death, that meant undead contagion could kill even an immortal.

While ghouls were driven by an uncontrollable need to infect others, wendigos simply wanted to eat other beings, would unearth corpses to dine on in times of scarcity.

A pack of those corpse-eaters descended on the felled male. He wouldn’t likely resurrect; wendigos didn’t often leave enough of a victim’s body to revive.

Another scream; two out of six immortals had fallen. She was tempted to help the remaining ones, but she had no weapon. Besides, they could be as evil as Silt the Crazy Sorcerer, imprisoned here for a reason.

Cold logic, cold heart, Mina.

As the last four struggled through the fray, she used her speed to get around and ahead of them, allowing those Lorean deaths to provide a distraction.

“I’m looking for a female vampire,” Silt told a lion shifter curled up in the middle of a wendigo hunting ground.

“Be careful what you wish for,” the male said weakly. Why was his voice muffled?

“Have you seen her?” When Silt had made a tactical detour to acquire weapons, he’d lost her trail. Though he’d once been a gifted hunter, the rain had erased her tracks in this ashy quagmire. “Answer me.”

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