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REMY

Something…is not right.

“Duke Azrid?” A female’s voice echoes through the darkness.

Where am I?

I blink at the Guides huddled against a castle wall.

“We can handle the rest,” the woman continues, slow and careful. Her pulse moves fast.

She’s afraid.

I taste lead.

She says something else. I’m beyond hearing. Almost beyond feeling.

Then my power tugs in the distance.

Perhaps I left myself a clue?

My fading senses follow to the end of the stretched rope of magic. It stops where two bodies merge in a dark room.

Trezzoran.

And—

I claw my throat.

Something clangs inside my hollow chest, more painful than thirst.

Who is that?

“You need Iris,” the woman says carefully. “She’s waiting for you back at base.”

“ Iris ,” I rasp.

Yes.

I remember.

Blue eyes and a cool, sweet touch.

The same blue magic holding the other end of my rope.

Far away, I feel the devil trying to pump his poison into her throat.

Absolutelyfuckingnot.

I flash through the shadows.

But my soul tangles.

Pain.

Confusion.

Halfway to somewhere, I find myself hovering above a broken forest where kobold zombies march.

It’s frightening, feeling myself fade.

The shadows whisper. They beg me to kill. To feed.

They promise peace.

Oblivion.

That intoxicating, blue power feathers through my veins.

This is not the end.

Iris can save me from the dark.

Irisirisirisirisirisirisirisirisirisirisiris.

Chanting her name, I follow her light.