Page 81 of Demon Monster's Little Human

She trembles, anger vibrating off her. Her magic pulses in time with mine.

She is changing.

Her skin hums with something I cannot name. Her eyes, Gods, her eyes.

The dark flickers inside them.

Not shadow. Not death.

Something worse.

I step away. I do not let her see how my hands shake.

The air shifts.

A low tremor rumbles beneath us, like the ruins themselves are breathing. The walls seem to whisper, a voice curling against the edge of my mind.

Liora stiffens. “Did you feel that?”

Yes.

I grip her wrist before she can step forward. “We need to leave.”

She yanks away. “Not until you tell me what’s happening to me.”

I do not know. And that terrifies me.

The tremor deepens, rolling through the cavern. Dust rains from the ceiling. Something is here.

A voice.

It does not speak in words. It does not speak at all. It slithers into my mind, into my bones, into the very essence of what I am.

It knows me.

It knows her.

It calls her name.

“Liora.”

The sound is not sound. It is a wound in reality, a gaping, bleeding thing that makes my vision darken, my body stiffen.

Liora gasps, clutching her head, eyes rolling back. She staggers, falls.

I lunge, catching her before she crumples to the floor.

She shudders in my grasp, her lips trembling as she breathes out the only word that should never be spoken.

“Amara.”

My blood turns to ice.

The ruins groan around us, shadows bleeding from the walls, curling toward us, inching closer.

No. No.

I grab her. I do not think. I do not hesitate.

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