A faint hum — like a choir of broken glass trembling on the verge of shattering — hovered over the ruined keep where Shia knelt. The moon was a thin sickle tonight, slicing through clouds of gray ash left behind by the Consciousness Drain. Beneath that grim light, the goblin warrior wiped drying blood from her cheek and tried to quiet the storm inside her skull.
Reed was near, issuing terse orders to the survivors. Shia caught only fragments: fortifications on the outer ring, quarantine protocols, a new triage ward for the half-dead revenants. But her own heartbeat drowned out most of his words, because something else throbbed louder than fear or fatigue.
A second pulse.
It wasn't her heart; it beat somewhere deeper, lodged between mind and spirit. Ever since she had plunged her hand into the Rift hours ago — trying to sever the Drain's tendrils before they devoured Reed's soul — an alien warmth circled her nerves. Now it flared again, threatening to ignite.
