The Five Realms

Chapter 40: Chyna IX

Chapter 40: Night of Unease

William's face flickered again—half in shadow, half in silver. The corridor he stood in wasn't real. She knew that. But it was familiar. The way grief can be familiar.

Chains crossed his chest in strange patterns, wrapping around his ribs like vines made of whispered regrets. Silver in some angles. Pure shadow in others. They hissed gently, like they breathed.

He didn't speak. He never did. Not in these dreams.

Behind him, the walls stretched and flexed like fabric hung over mirrors, draped after death. The floor beneath her feet was damp, but left no footprints. Everything here was too silent, like sound had forgotten how to exist.

Chyna stepped forward. Slowly. Careful not to wake the silence.

"William..." Her voice didn't echo. It evaporated.

He didn't look at her. Not quite. His eyes always searched past her—like he could see something she couldn't. Or like he was waiting for her to see it too.

Her hand moved instinctively toward him, fingers trembling.

Then a voice—low and crawling—slid through her ribs:
"You forgot something important, Chyna."

She froze. The words didn't belong to William. They didn't belong to anything human. It felt like they were being spoken through her instead of to her, using her own breath as a vessel.

She turned slightly, not enough to break the line of sight, but enough to notice the cloaked figure that had formed behind William. Not standing. Not moving. Just present. A stillness that screamed.

"The veil thins..."

That time, the whisper came from both mouths. William's and the other's. Perfectly overlapped. Perfectly wrong.

Chyna's knees buckled as black mist began leaking from William's mouth. It curled upward like reversed smoke, slithering toward the ceiling.

She gasped.

The corridor warped. The chains glowed. The walls collapsed in silence.

She awoke.

Her heart was pounding. Damp hair clung to her face. She didn't sit up immediately—she just stared at the inside of the tent, blinking away the remnants of the dream and the cold weight it left behind.

The silence outside wasn't peaceful. It was the kind that came after something.

She sat up slowly, pulled her knees to her chest, and stared through the open flap. Du Adurna Kuldr shimmered under the moonlight just beyond the camp. Gold flecks in the water flickered faintly. The dragons slept like curled mountains.

Everyone else—silent.

She drew the blanket tighter. Not because she was cold. Because something was watching the camp. Or maybe watching her.

The veil thins.

That was the third time she'd heard that phrase in the past month.

First, from an elven priestess during the bonding ritual. Then, again in a vision—weeks ago, brushed off as metaphor.

Now?

She ran a hand over her forearm, over the mark left by Lavendel's bond. It glowed faintly in the dark, like ink catching moonlight.

Was it prophecy? Was it memory? Was it both?

Her gaze swept the tent. Joey's sleeping form was curled tightly in his own blanket, just a few feet away. His brow was furrowed even in rest.