For a Spiritcrafter, he had a surprisingly odd reaction to ghost stories. Karam was tempted to tease him about it, but she was nice enough to reconsider embarrassing him in front of the Kin.

Asees began to walk and the Crafters followed.

For a moment Karam hung back, taking one last look at the serene shores. Arjun sheathed his sword and they walked in step along the wet sand, toward the grassy verge that overlooked them.

And then Karam stopped.

Her father’s pendant grew warm around her neck, and though Karam didn’t know why, it made her heartbeat quicken.

“What is it?” Arjun asked.

Karam swallowed and held up a hand to silence him.

Her eyes narrowed as the wind slowly drifted by, in and out of the wildflowers, through Karam’s hair and across the moonlit waters.

Such serenity.

Such peace.

Such quiet.

Her father’s pendant grew hotter.

Where were the mourners?

Where were the caretakers, sprinkling the sand with trick dust to keep the magic in harmony?

Where were the doves that Tavia had told her soared over the sky like gatekeepers?

“Stop!” Karam yelled.

Asees whipped her head back to face her.

Time slowed and there was a moment—a moment that existed within the grains of sand that housed the dead, between the breaths of wind and the blinking of the stars—when Asees frowned.

A moment when Karam thought that maybe she was just paranoid and there was nothing wrong with a little silence in the world.

The Crafters all looked to her, their backs to the grassy verge and the monstrous things it hid.

Karam’s pendant burned against her chest, with the same might as Saxony’s fire would have.

Asees parted her lips in a question.

And then the sword appeared.

Through her stomach, straight like an arrow.

For a second, Asees stood there with that same question on her lips. And then in place of the question there was blood. On her lips and her teeth, and when she looked down to see the sword for herself, it disappeared. Pulled back from the other side.

Asees fell to her knees.

Her attacker did not smile or blink or cast a look down at her body.

Karam charged.

She cut and slashed and kicked and stabbed without thinking or seeing. Her vision was filled with fury and fury alone, no space for reality, save for the glimpse of Arjun skidding across the verge and cradling Asees in his arms.

But it was just another moment.

Just another grain of time.

Arjun was screaming, a noise the likes of which Karam had never heard. One she hoped she would never, ever hear again.

His Kin turned back to the verge and from its green depths, an onslaught rose.

Soldiers, more than double their numbers. All with eager snarls on their faces and those same black eyes Asees had when she’d been under the thrall of Ashwood.