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But the moment the hunter saved me from death, he had bound me by an unspoken oath to save him as well. That was the way of Infernari.

I owed him my life.

Taking him back to answer for his crimes was the only way. I would argue for his lifelong imprisonment, not his execution. Only then could I be forgiven as well.

Slowly, the color bled away from the clouds and the sky brightened to a faded blue. I didn’t know how long I lay there, hypnotized by the sight of the sky and the shift of the air as this strange world awoke.

And then, at some point, a noise drifted in that shouldn’t be there.

The sound of buzzing filled my ears.

I rose to my feet, my eyes trained on the horizon as my stomach tightened with unease.

My eyes widened.

No.

Impossible.

This was a horror that should have stayed in my world.

In the distance, the blue of the sky was smothered by a dark haze. Amovinghaze.

I dashed intothe hotel room, where I found Asher pacing.

He paused when he saw me. “Where did you—?”

“We need to go, Asher.Now.”

He must’ve believed the very real panic on my face and in my voice because immediately he started grabbing our things.

“What did you see?” he asked, pulling his gun from his holster and checking the chamber.

“The bringer of blight.”

Clades Solem.

“In English” he said, re-strapping the weapon to his side.

“An Infernarus, a very powerful one. He can control the lesser creatures.” I thought it was impossible for our magic to influence the animals of this world. I couldn’t heal humans or any other earthly creature. Just the beings of my world.

It appeared Clades’ magic worked differently. That, or he brought Abyssos’s swarms with him.

I couldn’t think about that possibility.

“This is bad because...?”

“A swarm is coming our way.”

We both burst out of our room, directly into the parking lot. The buzzing noise was already loud, and it had yet to reach us.

Asher squinted at the horizon. “A swarm of what?” he asked.

Slowly, slowly, the horde moved across the sun. The light above us dimmed. He wanted to know what great monstrosity rode the wind.

“I don’t know.” I had to raise my voice to be heard.

It didn’t really matter what the swarm was made up of. When there were that many of them, even a feather fly could be lethal.