Skye is dead.
How she perished is a mystery. All she knows is that she is trapped in After, a makeshift city of souls surrounded by infinite darkness and terrifying monsters that tear ghosts apart.
But while all other ghosts accept the eternity of...
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My chest pounded in double-time. I sat perched atop my shadow mount, mouth agape at the wall of After. Except I couldn't even see the wall for all the shadows climbing up and over it using the piling bodies, both slain and alive, of their kin. Atop the wall, hollows sliced and slashed, and bits and pieces of shadows fell into the boiling mass of monsters below. But the guards' efforts were not enough. Not even the light of the crystal sun was enough to calm the shadows.
Some shadows still breached through After's defenses, snapping hollows apart in their jaws and paying no mind to the glowing boils marring their sun-burned flesh. The shadows, their minds lost and crazed, would tear apart each and every hollow in After in search of their missing halves.
They would soon overrun the city.
The shadow beneath me hissed at the sight. I dug my heels into his sides. "Let's go," I told him. "We have to stop this."
He crossed the last length of the desert in a few bounds and clambered up the writhing bodies of his kin with all the ease of a spider. I yelped and pinched folds of his skin in my fists, desperate for handholds as we scaled the wall together. With a shriek, the maned shadow threw himself onto the top of the wall. Instantly, guards brandished a battalion of glowing swords at the two of us. I dismounted my panting and exhausted ride with arms raised at the hollow guards. Nannāru squawked from my shoulder.
"Wait!" I yelled. "Don't hurt him! Don't hurt any of them! Shadows are—!"
"Get out of here and head to the palace with all the other civilians!" a guard barked. Hollows grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me away from Blackburne's shadow. A single guard raised an ax above the creature's head.
"No!" I kicked the guards restraining me, cursing my lack of a weapon. It was no use. The sharpened edge of the ax, parched for the black blood of shadows, caught the rose-toned half-light.
The enormous shadow stood to his full height and screamed. Smoke and globules of dark saliva flew from his maw, splattering in the faces of the shocked hollows. Even the most brazen of guards hesitated and backed away from the enraged creature.
I shrugged the slackened hands off of me and stood between the guards and the shadow. The beast nuzzled into me from behind. I swore I heard the rumbling of a purr emanate from his seeping throat. Gross. "Just keep the shadows from breaching the walls," I told the guards. I looked up at the half-sun floating out over the wasteland. "I'll end this soon. Come on, you." I gave the great beast a gentle pat on his leathery hide. My shadow friend lowered himself to the ground so I could climb aboard again. Together, we leaped clear from the wall into After, heading for the city's heart where we'd surely find Blackburne.
The streets we crashed into were full of monsters tearing into buildings—all searching for something. The heavy atmosphere was frigid and fraught with distant screams and wails. Black oily stains splattered every dingy surface. I swallowed the rising lump in my throat, and prayed that Webb and Vale were still safe. I prayed I'd see them again at the heart of the city that was barely standing. The shadow and I raced forward, pouncing over debris and other wriggling shadows. I ducked my head to avoid tangles of wires, catching a glimpse inside the blown-out window of a hovel.
