Zuberi halted, raising one fist in the air. The mist had thickened, obscuring their progress despite their steady pace. A ring of weathered stones emerged from the haze—taller than the stacks they'd seen before, nearly as high as baobabs and as wide as hills. Their surfaces were polished smooth with age, radiating a chill, a property distinct to this place, Zuberi felt, just as the hum belonged to the jungle or the crystals formations had that buzzing pulse.
"What the fuck is that?" Hanz asked.
Zuberi approached the stones, spear ready but lowered. "No idea."
A cold breeze swept over them, as if the stones themselves had exhaled. Lisa's fingers hovered near the largest slab, trembling. Zuberi caught the scent of mold and damp earth.
"There's sadness here," Lisa said, voice quiet, her hand pausing inches away from one of the stone giants. The silver flecks in the emerald lake of her eyes brightened. "Grief, a lot of it. So many voices… screaming, crying, begging. They were tested, like us. But…" Words trailing, she pulled her hand back, tears on her cheeks.
Hanz moved toward his sister, then hesitated, shadows gathering at his feet. "Haunted rocks," he muttered with a shake to his voice. "Fucking fantastic!"
Zuberi watched Lisa, alert for any sign of her previous poison-induced weakness. Something told him they would need all their strength. Soon.
Zuberi circled the stones, tracing ghostly grooves worn smooth by centuries of erosion. The majority of monoliths, charcoal‑gray slabs streaked with pale lichen that appeared to shift and crawl when viewed directly, stood nearly three meters tall. They weren't natural. It was to Zuberi, like the partially collapsed archway on the stone ridge, where they had rested before venturing to this mist-infected valley. Someone, a people, had placed these here. The purpose alone escaped him, but given the pit in his stomach, he couldn't say he wanted to find out. History pressed in around him, sorrow gathering in the mist like a living thing. Even Hanz stood quiet now, his constant complaints silenced by the weight of countless lost souls.
A movement at the edge of his vision caught Zuberi's attention. A gaunt shape rose from the mist, vague as smoke. It drifted forward without a sound, bringing a deeper, drier cold.
"We're not alone," he said, tightening his grip on his spear.
Hanz swore, shadows coiling around his wrists. Lisa gasped, backing into Zuberi's shoulder.
"Wraithling," Lisa said in a whisper, staring into the fog where the thing had appeared.
The word struck Zuberi like an echo. He hadn't voiced it, not exactly, but it had formed in his mind, a moment before Lisa voiced it.
He turned to Hanz. "Do you remember the creature we fought before we heard your sister?"
"Yeah," Hanz replied. "The one with—"
Zuberi cut him off with a look, then shifted to Lisa. "Did you see a creature like it? Black fur, long muzzle, horns, red crest?"
She nodded. "I saw one. But I didn't fight it. I ran."
Zuberi gave her a smile he wanted to convey sympathy. "Of course," then he pressed. "What would you call it?"
Lisa frowned, confusion painted on her wrinkled brow, then answered with a shrug. "If I had to? Probabaly, Rhinoceraptor, I suppose. Maybe?"
Hanz glanced up. "Hey! That's what I called it."
Zuberi met his eyes. "Me too. And I don't even know what a ceraptor is."
A flicker of amusement crossed Hanz and Lisa's faces, and Zuberi knew he'd stated something obvious to them. But there wasn't time to dwell on that. The silence deepened, heavy with tension.
"All right, let's do this," Hanz said, steadying his voice. He looked at Lisa, then Zuberi. "On three, we each say what we think this place is called. Just blurt it out. Ready?"
Zuberi nodded. The siblings drew closer.
"One." The mist thickened.
Zuberi's breath caught. "Two."
"Three."
"Wraithlands," they said in unison.
For a moment, everything held still. No wind, no sounds. Zuberi's markings, a network of lightning-like invisible tendrils, as he envisioned them in his mind, pulsed.
Then, surging from the fog, the Wraithlings attacked. Zuberi spun toward the noise, a soft rustle at first, rising the way a river roars after it broke the dam, becoming sharper and louder.
Lisa froze. "Something's coming," she said. "Small, fast, many."
Shapes formed in the mist, knee‑high figures with humanoid outlines and insect‑like twitches. Their bodies looked like shifting smoke, marked with red points where eyes should be. The things waited, motionless, then surged forward.
"Back to back!" Zuberi shouted, pushing Lisa behind him.
His spear sliced through the first Wraithling, making it recoil. They kept coming, draining his strength with each touch, a cold numb sensation spreading from the point of contact, out and out and out. Hanz swung his shadows, tangling a few Wraithlings, but they broke free almost as fast as he could trip them. Lisa crouched low, hands outstretched, as if a blind person sensing their way.
Zuberi's arms burned with cold, his energy fading. Hanz staggered, his defenses weakening. It looked like the Wraithlings effect was the same on Hanz as it was on Zuberi. Three of the creatures closed on Lisa. She swiped at them, her movements slowing, she too suffering her companions' fate.
It dawned on Zuberi that Lisa was not a blind woman sensing her way around the dark, but a defenseless one, using the only weapon she had. Her hands. Knowing his spear was useless to him in this configuration, let alone to someone with no experience, Zuberi ripped his machete from its sheath at his hip. As he lunged past her toward the new threat, he shoved the worn hilt into her frozen hand.
"Fight!" he choked out, hoping the solid weight would break her paralysis.
They were losing ground, strength, hope, everything. Zuberi blinked through the haze, refusing to yield. His markings flared, drawing on something deeper. Heat built within him, not just the tingling warmth he'd felt to this point, but an inferno fueled by images of earth and fire. He suppressed his apprehension, a fear of the unknown all living things shared, but that he could not afford now if he wanted to survive.
The power erupted as golden light, bubbling outward like a pebble, no a rock, tossed into a pond, but in every direction. The Wraithlings twisted and vanished, unable to withstand the light or the heat, or both. The mist parted, revealing the stones and twisted trees in the fading glow.
Zuberi dropped to one knee, gasping for air. His spear clattered to the ground. Lisa stood nearby, dazed but upright, Zuberi's machete still gripped in her hand. Hanz lay to Zuberi's other side panting, then he burst into laughter. It was a raw, relieved, and replenishing sound. Zuberi welcomed it.
They had survived, claiming a fragile victory on the Wraithlands. But, although the immediate threat was gone, all were exhausted. Zuberi could barely feel his arms. He doubted he could lift his spear if they were attacked again, let alone unleash the blast that appeared to keep the mist at bay. But slowly, inch by inch, it was rolling back.