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Excerpt from Chapter 2
Battle Wraiths
Raiann squeezed with her legs out of instinct. Obsidian leaped forward. Barely glimpsed forms paced alongside, appearing and fading before Raiann could discern their shape. Wolves? They had to be wolves or some other predator. Raiann leaned forward in the saddle, urging Obsidian to outrun the pack. Instead, the stallion reared as something large and dark jolted upward in front of them.
Obsidian struck with his hooves. He only hit mist. Raiann clung to his mane as a sudden wind shrieked. Only no breeze touched her skin, just cold. Then she knew what they were. What pursued them wasn’t wolves, they were battle wraiths.
Souls sworn to serve the dark god Galadriel in exchange for eternal life, battle wraiths lived on even in death. Only now, they were anchored to where their body died during the wars between gods of light and dark. With a touch colder than ice, they promised a slow, painful death. And since they were dead already, she could not kill them.
Raiann kicked Obsidian so hard the stallion leaped into the air as he kicked with his rear legs. She fell forward against his neck and grabbed for his mane in fear of falling below his sharp hooves. Unbalanced and frightened, Obsidian hurtled forward in a staggering run as he slipped on wet ground and banged into boulders. His piercing whinny of pain echoed through the stifling fog. Creatures of mist and air resounded it in a cacophony out of nightmares.
Obsidian bucked and kicked as he attempted to flee the shrieking around them. Raiann grip on his smooth neck loosened as he twisted. She fell to damp grass as he spun sideways with a length of his thick mane wrapped in her fingers. Having ridden himself of her awkward weight, he charged into the fog and darkness, snorting as he disappeared into the night. Even his hoofbeats faded as if he’d vanished. Unnatural silence wrapped around her.
Raiann released a breath that hovered in the air before her like frozen moonlight. The quiet devolved to whispers that pricked the skin on her neck. She held back a sob, though the effort strained her chest. She’d had better hopes than to die her first night free of Black Throne, but so be it. She at least hadn’t wait for a dagger in the back in the halls of her father. Remmin would know her failure and fate when Obsidian returned home bruised and bloody. At least she hoped the stallion would manage to live.
Though it would do nothing, Raiann drew the dagger she wore as she rose to her quaking feet. Any weapon felt better than standing before the moving, whispering mist empty-handed.
She lunged forward. “Come for me then!”
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