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A sudden cessation of feminine conversation caused him to glance up just in time to see the girl with hair the color of dark red clay stretching out her hand toward a large crack in the wall.

“Don’t—”

But his warning came too late. A blinding flash of light and recoil of magic flung the human across the chamber and against the opposite wall with a horrific smacking sound.

Chapter 7

For some reason, the magical force within the cracks in the cave wall called to Anrid. The warmth, the luminescent glow, and something else...she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It was almost as if she heard the whisper of voices calling out to her from deep within the vacillating light of what the goblin man called the Bifrost.

But that was ridiculous. Light didn’t have a voice to speak.

And yet she swore it called to her.

She stretched out her right hand toward the radiance pouring out of the rock.

The world exploded. Blinding light wrapped around her at the same moment her body went rigid. She couldn’t move or cry out. Pain roared through her entire being in alternating flashes of heat and ice. But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

The voices screaming in her head drowned out all else. They were so loud, so frantic, she feared her head would explode from the pressure. Too many, too thunderous...

She longed to press her palms over her ears as the myriad of screams coalesced into a unified thought: They are coming. They are coming.

THEY ARE COMING.

A new pain slammed through her, a pain of body and bone. The shock of it ripped her away from the voices clawing at her mind. She gasped for breath and blinked her eyes, but she saw nothing but hot white light.

She must be dying. Is this what one saw when they faced the last moments of their life?

Already she felt the hands of those who had gone before clawing at her body. Hands tugged at her arms and firm fingers turned her face side to side. Strange, she could even feel calluses catching against the tender skin on her throat.

Did the dead have calluses?

They are coming, the unified voice whispered, but it was further away this time, in the back of her mind. The light seemed to recede as well, but the pain remained.

She moaned.

Something else remained too, besides the whisper of voices in her thoughts, but she didn’t know what it was. Whatever it was, it felt foreign. Alien.

It didn’t belong.

It clung to her insides as if clawing for purchase, digging in, anchoring itself to her thoughts, her memories, her feelings. She wanted it out—wanted it gone. But, unable to move, she couldn’t do anything to make it go away.

At last, her blinking eyes cleared away the light and replaced it with impenetrable darkness. But that was even worse, the shadows pressing down on her from every direction. It pressed on all sides as if it were a malevolent thing, seeking to smother her.

“Steady.” A deep but gentle voice wove through the darkness. “You’re going to be fine.”

The shadows lifted her from the ground and held her close. Icy fingers caught hold of her ankle and a choking voice called out, “Is she dead? Uh-NEE?”

It occurred to her she knew that voice, that it was important or should mean something to her. But the memory linked to the impression eluded her. Instead, she rode on waves of consciousness, held fast in shadowy arms as she sank deeper and deeper into the darkness.

When she emerged from blissful rest, she felt anything but rested. She couldn’t remember where she was or how she had gotten here. The lack of information rocked her with ripples of fear. When her arms and legs spasmed, arms tightened around her.

“Easy! You’re in no danger.”

She drew ragged breaths until she collected her senses.

The voice belonged to the goblin who had rescued her not once but twice now. She groaned, as much from embarrassment as from soreness. What her sister would think of her, getting into all this trouble and fainting and needing to be saved. Dagmar would tease her mercilessly.

“What happened?” she managed at last. Her stomach roiled, and she pressed a hand against it.