Alaric blinked.
The cave was gone. In its place stretched a deep void... saturated with crimson.
"What?" He spun, boots silent on nothing. "What just—"
"Listen to me."
The voice cut through the void like a blade.
Alaric's head jerked toward the sound.
Brandon stood twenty feet away, but not the way he'd appeared before. Chains wound around him, biting into wrists and forearms, coiling around his torso like iron serpents.
Yet his eyes burned.
"Give up your control of the body." Brandon's voice was steel. "Now."
Alaric stared. "What are you saying—?"
"If you don't want to die, do what I say. Don't resist when I try to take over."
"But—"
Then the reality itself began fracturing, splintering like glass under a hammer.
"I don't have much time!" Brandon yanked against the chains.
Then the world shattered.
Alaric gasped as the void exploded into fragments and the cave came back into existence.
And the claw descending toward his skull.
Then something hooked into him.
