The warning bells tolled sharp and unforgiving at midnight. Three strokes, a pause, then three more-an ancient invasion signal not taken up since the Shadow Wars. The echoes rolled through the Market District, slicing through murmurs of haggling merchants and the playing of children.
I was haggling over a bundle of dreamleaf when the noise paralyzed the crowd. The world stiffened around me. A woman dropped her basket of glowfruit; its golden balls rolled into the gutter. Children stopped in their game; their playthings swallowed up by an upwelling fear. The merchants, so quick to sweep in and protect their merchandise, were even frozen in their tracks, heads thrown back as one toward the tall towers where the bells tolled.
And then the screaming started.
They burst from between buildings, a torrent of nightmares manifested in flesh and blood, twisted things. The form of humanity, a grotesque parody, the skin shifting to contain writhing patterns that seemed to writhe beneath my gaze. I knew one. Junior Archivist Tam-quietly cataloging old books last week-had her eyes for voids of blackness now and her mouth was twisted too wide as she reached out for a fleeing merchant.
Training overrode everything. I pulled starfire into my hands, its familiar warmth flaring against the icy dread pooling in my chest. "Get inside!" I shouted, my voice cutting through the chaos. "Seal your doors!"
The first of the creatures lunged at me, and I hurled a bolt of starlight that struck it square in the chest. It staggered, smoking, but didn't fall. Worse, the wound began to close, the edges knitting together in unnatural, shifting patterns. It was like reality itself bent to their will.
"Sera!
Malakai landed beside me, his cloak swirling as if caught in a phantom wind. The silver lines etched into his skin glowed brighter than I'd ever seen, pulsing with an eerie, otherworldly rhythm. "They're not killing," he said, his voice clipped and urgent. "They're converting. Don't let them touch you!"
His warning had barely come soon enough. Then, I saw it—where they caught people, they didn't claw or bite; they leaned in and put their hands against their victim's face. The Change coursed on like ink in water, twisting flesh and mind together and bending it to some alien will.
"The Archives?" I asked, laying a shield of light between a cluster of children and their pursuers.
"Overrun. The seals broke an hour ago." Malakai's hands moved with practiced precision, weaving a net of starlight that trapped three of the creatures. "The Council chamber too. Kaine. Kaine wasn't what we thought. He opened the way for them."
The weight of his words hit me like a blow. Arch-Speaker Kaine—trusted leader, keeper of secrets—had betrayed us. And with his knowledge of the city's defenses, our chances of survival dwindled to nothing.
"How many?
Too many. More coming." His voice cracked, raw with despair. "The Old Ones-they've found a way to reach through anyone who's studied their lore too deeply. All those scholars, apprentices." He trailed off, his gaze snapping to the shadows of a nearby alley.
Something huge moved there, impossible in the space it took up. Angles that shouldn't exist twisted in and out of sight, limbs bending through dimensions I couldn't understand. Its eyes-if they could be called that-opened onto voids so deep they seemed to pull the world inward. The air went cold, frost crystallizing on the cobblestones.
"Run," Malakai whispered, his voice shaking.
"What? I'm not leaving you-
He grasped my arm, his touch searingly cold where the silver lines met my skin. "Sera, listen to me. The Key showed me what's coming. I can hold them off, maybe even close this breach, but you have to get to the Moon Towers. Find the Celestial Chamber."
"Malakai, I—
"There's a box there," he said, his grasp tightening. "Marked with my family's seal. Inside is everything I've learned about what we're facing. About what the giant-kings were trying to stop."
His eyes latched onto mine, and for the first time I saw in them fear-but not of dying, of something far worse.
"Promise me."
The world around us seemed to shudder, the air thick with the hum of encroaching darkness. Behind him, the massive entity began to shift once more, its form distorting in readiness to step fully into our reality.
I swallowed hard, nodding. "I promise."
He released me and turned to face the approaching horror, silver light flaring around him like a second skin. I didn't wait to see what would happen next. Clutching my cloak tightly, I ran, the cries of the twisted and the clash of starfire fading behind me as I sprinted toward the distant towers.
Above, the stars wept for what would soon take place as the city burned in the light of the moon.