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Skye made sure to scoff, refusing to pick up the bait.

Vaughn hesitated just a moment longer, then let out a derisive snort. He still eyed Skyesuspiciously, but for now, he seemed placated as he urged his horse forward, grumbling something about shadow mages from House Ghislain.

Carin, though… she just stared at Skye like she’d seen a ghost. He could still feel her eyes on him as he swung himself back into the saddle.

As they urged the horses forward, through the clearing. It was almost like she knew. Like she could see each spell he had used, the magic still entwined beneath his skin, meshed with flesh and bone.

But then her eyes shifted to the bodies littering the clearing. Their mouths gaped, and their limbs tangled. She paled even further when her horse stepped over that little girl with the slit throat and black hair.

“Hey,” he heard Asher murmur to Carin. Turning slightly, Skye saw the water mage draw up his horse beside her. “Look at me.”

So, she did.

“It’s okay,” he said softly, reaching over to place a hand on hers, still clutched around the reins in a white-knuckled grip. “You’reokay. We’ll get through this, Cee. Nod if you understand.”

She gave a shaky nod, and Skye suddenly felt guilty for eavesdropping. Whatever this was—it was personal. They were fighting an army of dead men, and it was impossible to come away from that without a few demons. As he looked back at Carin Fenmar now, he could see each one of those monsters and their gnashing teeth.

Thankfully for her—and this mission—Asher Venwraith seemed more than willing to fight them.

Evening came and went, and Skye was grateful for the brief but heavy shower thatpounded down on them somewhere outside of Della. Asher and Carin had grumbled out a few choice curses, complaining about visibility, but the downpour helped wash away some of the sweat and rot that clung to them as they began piling up a mound of shades.

It was a precaution as they drew nearer to the palace. Shades fed on flesh and aether, and they didn’t want anything that would draw them into their camp.

Kato began directing the others to gather wood and kindling for the pyre, and Skye checked each body, retrieving arms and legs and heads and trying to piece them back together. There were humans and fey, even an old draegon man whose scaly skin, once a vibrant blue, had faded to a dull gray. After the Schism, most of the otherworld races had retreated to Lycia, but with the impending Aion Gate connection, the merchants had started to return to the island.

Shards, please don’t let them have nephilim.

With their paper-white skin and bat-like wings, those cranky bastards were already unsettling. If they’d been turned into shades, however… Skye shuddered. That was something he didn’t even want to imagine.

“The palace is just ahead,” Vaughn called to the group. He was still atop his horse, and the flames from the nearby pyre glinted in those yellow eyes. “As far as I can tell, the area is clear, and if memory serves, the stables should still be intact. We can make camp there.”

There was a chorus of grumbled agreement, and then they were moving forward again.

The last of the sunlight began to fade, and Skye channeled more aether into his eyes,blinking as the darkness of the surrounding forest bled away. He could already hear the rapids that flowed beneath the palace roaring in the distance, and as they drew nearer to the main gate, they had to slow the horses as the terrain flowed from dirt and moss-covered roots to broken pavement.

Infinity’s Edge loomed in the distance, a behemoth of a building that, even in its current state of neglect, still managed to outshine any of the palaces in Arylaan. The spires, though crumbling, still stretched towards the sky, and the veins of golden crystal that swept through the white marble stone glittered in the moonlight. Despite the fighting that had taken place shortly after the Schism, the palace had been treated with surprising gentleness, and most of the destruction had been contained to the area just outside the fence line.

“The ground has been disturbed,” Kato murmured as the horses carefully picked their way through the scraps of armor and refuse littered along the black iron fence. “And I don’t think this was Aiden. The destruction is too widespread, even for an earth mage.”

The old cobbled drive was cracked and overgrown, and there were several old Mechanica suits lying in pieces around the main gate. The helmets had been crushed, the torsos dented. For some, the brightly colored metal was so twisted and bent, it was no more than a tangle of scrap and wiring.

And all around, the ground was littered with shards of crystal.Hyaline, Skye realized. The closest relay tower—what used to be a shining colossus that dwarfed everything around it—wasnow a jagged pillar of cracked stone jutting from the earth.

That was recent, he thought, shivering. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the force it would’ve taken to bring down one of those towers.

The stables were on the northeastern side of the palace grounds, and Skye kept his hand on his sword as they skirted around the edge of the property, cataloging each building, each trail. The gardens were overgrown, but he could still pick out what had once been rolling lawns with winding walks bordered by long rows of evergreens and colorful exotic flowers.

Everything around him had an aura of abandonment, of hushed despair. And though he had never believed in ghosts—not in the way that Taly did, though he was more inclined to now after those little blue bastards had terrorized him down in the tunnels—he couldn’t deny that this placefelthaunted. Like there was something here, watching from the shadows.

As Vaughn had predicted, the stables were intact, and they began the process of cooling the horses and setting up camp.

“I’m going to go scout the area,” Skye said to Kato as they both stood to the side, watching Asher and Carin building a fire beneath a hole in the stable roof. “There are too many places to hide inside the palace, and I’d feel better if the main entrances were warded.”

Kato gave him a look that said:Do you really expect me to believe that?

To which, Skye just shrugged, meeting his gaze and refusing to back down. He could feel the tug of that thread more clearly now, and if Taly was anywhere nearby, he didn’t want to wait untiltomorrow morning to find out. He wanted to know tonight.

Plus, this would be the easiest time to break away from the group. When they were tired and less inclined to question his motives.