More branches snatch at my hair. All thoughts of trying to communicate vanish. I can’t focus. I can’t think or see anything but those horrible eyes, clammy fingers, and ragged nails shredding at me, mouths screaming as the roots crawl from their throats and rip their faces in two. My swords move purely on reflex, because my mind is paralyzed with terror, screaming at me to obey the trees and run.

Something like a hoarse rasp disrupts the trees’ wails. I seek out the sound, which seems to have come from a thick trunk, misshapen like the rest but unusually swollen. The molding wood leaks black sap, as if bloated or waterlogged. Bark fractures and then peels away as the tree buckles. Something reaches out from within.

Like my nightmares made real, blackened, shriveled arms elbow away the dead bark as the creature hauls itself from the recesses of the tree. What was once a head strains next through the gap, followed by a collapsed torso, ribs protruding at all angles.

Sisters, protect me, I think with a terror that pins me in place and crushes my lungs. As the creature’s wrecked hands touch the ground, clumps of hair fall from its shoulders. The hair is white.

This creature—and the slime that coats the trees—is what’s left of my shadowblessed assassin.

He is a ruin of bone and gristle. Even as his body drops to the ground with a wet thud, he is clearly still a part of the Dead Wood. What remains of his skin and muscles stretches from his raw skull and shoulders to the tree’s innards in fleshy strips like gruesome puppet strings. His face is gone, the pit of his mouth the only indication of something once human.

The stump of his torso ends abruptly, the tail of his spine enveloped in thick gray vines. As his fingers dig into the earth and his broken body slides toward me, I release a horrified cry and slash my swords at his limbs. Blood gone black and thick spills onto the dirt. His throat makes a croaking sound as the tree tries to reel him back, pulling the strings taut. He flops like a caught fish, and I can’t bear it a moment longer.

I kick viciously at a root and run, almost tripping as another root shoots into my path. My swords flash at even the slightest movement as I dart through the trees that contort and quake. My breaths are thin and uneven, my lungs refusing to function. His hatred gropes at my retreating back as the souls howl at my intrusion.

Bursting from the woods, I slam straight into Phaut.

“Whoa, whoa!” She grabs my shoulders.

I shove past her, unable to think or breathe until the white veil closes behind us and the path returns beneath our feet.