MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

The city streets were empty in the pre-dawn darkness. All but the most desperate souls were locked behind their doors. A chill wind, carrying the scent of damp stone and desperation, wound through the narrow alleys. Lindsey followed Justin, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. Her entire body thrummed with residual energy from their forced connection.

His form had solidified more as they moved through the cold air, as if the night itself fed him power, invigorating his spectral essence. Her hand still glowed faintly with the anchor mark, a spiral of silver beneath her skin. She realized now that it was a beacon, a signal connecting them across any distance, any barrier.

“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice small in the vast, echoing silence. It felt swallowed by the oppressive quiet of the city.

“Somewhere your fear cannot reach the innocent.” Justin’s voice was clipped, efficient. He moved like a predator, his awareness distributed across their surroundings, searching for threats, scanning every shadow and every hidden doorway. “The Clock Tower. It is one of the few places in this city where my power remains strong enough to create a ward, to offer true sanctuary.”

They passed through a square where vendors had begun to set up their stalls, their movements sluggish in the early hour. A woman saw them. Her eyes, wide with fear and accusation, fixed on Lindsey’s faintly glowing hand. She made a warding gesture, pulling her child close to her, shielding him from the spectral guardian and the girl he was bound to. Lindsey tried not to see the fear in her eyes, the judgment in her hurried movements.

They were almost to the tower when the wraith found them. It materialized from the swirling mist like a nightmare made flesh, this one larger than the first, its form more stable, more substantial. The Blight had changed it, mutated it into something between spirit and beast, a hunger given form. Its eyes were hollow, black pits, and they fixed on Lindsey with predatory hunger. It seemed to recognize the anchor, the raw power now linked to her.

“More than one,” Justin murmured, a low growl in his chest. He pulled Lindsey behind him, his spectral body becoming a living barrier. “The ritual called to them. It acted like a beacon, drawing every twisted, hungry thing in the city.”

The wraith shrieked, a sound that scraped against Lindsey’s teeth, and lunged. Justin met it head-on, his form flickering between solid and spectral, a dance of presence and absence. They were evenly matched, two beings caught between worlds, caught in a desperate struggle. For a moment, Lindsey thought he might lose. The wraith was faster, more savage, unburdened by duty or restraint. It had nothing to protect, nothing to consider but hunger and pain, a pure, unthinking malice.

Then Justin saw an opening. His glowing eyes narrowed, calculating, cold. He drove the wraith back toward Lindsey, a deliberate movement. She realized what he intended to do, and the realization came with a spike of pure terror, a cold dread that seized her heart.

“No,” she breathed, her voice a desperate plea, a sound stolen by the fear in her throat.

“Yes.” His mental voice was absolute, cutting through her terror. He pinned the wraith against the crumbling brick wall, holding it steady despite its thrashing, its desperate clawing. “Do not move, Scribe. Keep your eyes open. Do not close them or I will not be able to reach you.”

“You cannot,” she stammered, shaking her head. The memory of his essence passing through her, the crushing loneliness, the violation, was still too raw. “I felt what happened last time. I felt you inside me. It will—it will tear me apart.”

“It will hurt.” He was already turning, already becoming translucent at the edges, his form blurring. “But it will save your life. That is what I do now. I save your life. Whether you wish me to or not. This is my burden.”

Lindsey held her breath, tears stinging her eyes as Justin’s form began to dissolve. He passed through her body not like a gentle mist, but like a violent current, an intimate and agonizing invasion. His cold swept through her, and with it came flashes of memory that were not her own. A battlefield, vast and bloody. A woman’s laugh, bright as sunlight. The searing moment of sacrifice, an oath made in blood and fire. Eight hundred years of isolating darkness, a crushing, endless solitude.

She felt him destroying the wraith from the inside, burning it away with ancient power and cold, righteous fury. The wraith’s shrieks turned to gurgles, then silence. When he reformed, he was on the other side of her, and the wraith was nothing but a pile of glistening ash again, dissolving into the pre-dawn mist.

Lindsey fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face. The invasion of his presence, the forced intimacy of it, was too much. It was too vulnerable. Too much knowing. She could feel him inside her now, not his physical form but his consciousness, a weight at the back of her mind that she could not shake, a constant, unwanted companion.

Justin knelt beside her, his breathing harsh, his spectral form flickering, showing the strain. He reached out, his hand hovering inches from her face, then pulling back. His control was absolute, even in exhaustion.

“This bond,” he said, his voice raw, rough with emotion he rarely allowed to surface, “it is not a gift. It is a shackle. For both of us. And I am sorry for the manner of its forging.”

Lindsey looked at him through her tears, and she saw something in his eyes shift. Something that might have been regret, might have been shame, a flicker of true vulnerability. But he quickly buried it behind that impenetrable mask of control, forcing it deep within himself. The moment was fleeting, a ghost of an emotion.

“Come,” he said, extending his hand, not touching her, but offering a choice. His voice was clipped once more, back to its usual commanding tone. “The tower is still distant, and they are hunting. We must move. Now.”