Chapter 6
Varka and Snezna stepped out of the carriage. Normally, they would've been spotted instantly—but not this time.
Something was wrong.
Dead silence.
The kind of silence that clung to the air like ash after a fire.
Varka met Snezna's eyes.
"They're here," he muttered, voice low. "Best we start moving."
Snezna gave a slow nod, lips pressed tight.
Carter, watching through Varka's eyes, followed his gaze across the caravan—and froze.
Bodies. Dozens of them. Soldiers torn apart, twisted in grotesque angles. Blood pooled in the dirt, already blackening. Yet none of it had been heard from their carriage. Not a scream. Not a clash of steel.
It was as though the slaughter had been swallowed by the night itself.
"We should cloak ourselves," Varka said.
Snezna flicked his fingers in agreement. Varka didn't chant or gesture—he merely thought the command, and the two of them seemed to blur, shadows folding closer around their forms until they melted into the background.
"Now," Snezna whispered. "Find what was taken. These caravans never travel alone. Others will follow."
They moved. One by one, they searched the wagons. Supplies. Weapons. Chests of valuables.
Then Varka stopped.
His steps halted before a carriage nearly identical to the one he himself had been caged in. His hand lingered on the door before he pushed it open.
The stench hit first.
Inside were bodies. Dozens of slaves—but not merely dead. Mangled. Broken. Limbs bent backward, heads twisted at impossible angles. Eyes gouged out. Some were missing pieces altogether.
Carter would have vomited if he weren't inside another man's body.
"Damn…" Snezna muttered, stepping in beside him. His voice trembled with fury. "These fiends… they toyed with them before killing them."
Varka's reply was cold, stripped of all feeling.
"Doesn't matter. They're gone. Did you find what was stolen?"
Snezna hesitated, just for a moment. His face flickered with an emotion Carter couldn't name—something sharp, raw, hidden quickly. Then he pulled out an amulet and a ring.
Varka snatched them from his hand. The moment the ring slid onto his finger, Carter felt it. The world shifted. As though the air itself leaned closer, listening more carefully to every thought.
"Good," Varka spat. "We leave. Now."
Snezna smirked faintly. "I also took some gold. Seemed a shame to waste the opportunity."
Before Varka could reply, the night split open with a sound.
A howl.
Not beast, not human. Something in between.
It crawled into their bones, and for the first time Carter felt Varka shudder.
In the next heartbeat, Snezna was gone—snatched and hurled like a doll into a nearby tree with bone-snapping force.
Carter's borrowed heart raced. Almost instantly, Varka's instincts surged, his body coiled for battle. And then he saw it.
The creature.
Carter recognized it—or thought he did. The same nightmare his knight's body had fought before. But this one was worse.
It had shape. A twisted mockery of humanity. Four arms. No face. Its body shimmered like a warped mirror, bending the light around it as though reality itself strained to hold its form.
Varka's hands trembled.
He didn't let himself hesitate. A dagger bloomed into his grip. He hurled it in a single fluid motion, and as it flew, a single word pressed against his mind:
Explode.
The blade obeyed.
Light burst like a grenade, searing white. The blast rattled the ground and left a crater in its wake.
But when Varka's vision cleared—hands were already reaching for his throat.
No—not hands. Reality itself bent wrong, warping toward his neck, as if the creature's touch pulled him into some other place.
Instinct screamed. Varka tore himself back, retreating just in time.
"Don't let it touch you!" Snezna roared, forcing himself up, blood staining his mouth.
Another shape peeled itself from the darkness. Then another. Then more.
The night was alive with shifting reflections.
Shit, Varka thought.
And for the first time, Carter felt it. Panic. Raw and real, in the heart of the man whose body he wore.
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