Page 24 of Marked By His Hunger
Then light.
Auroras rippled overhead in ribbons of green and silver. Black spires carved with glowing runes rose from jagged cliffs. Wind whipped off a dark sea below.
Asgarheim.
The Runevald Institute loomed ahead, its basalt towers etched with silver sigils that pulsed faintly under the shifting sky.
It was breathtaking.
And terrifying.
I tightened my grip on my suitcase handle.
I hadn’t imagined this place quite so… medieval-meets-apocalypse.
But then again, I hadn’t imagined most of my life.
Movement flickered at the edge of my vision.
Shit.
An elderly ghost stood several yards away, staring at me with hollow confusion. She opened her mouth, shouting silently, words I refused to acknowledge.
Her expression shifted to desperation.
Then anger.
Her shriek echoed across the stone courtyard.
I didn’t react.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t flinch.
Years of practice had taught me that.
See, the dead were drawn to heightened emotion. Fear fed them. Panic amplified them.
I’d learned the hard way that no reaction was the best reaction.
So right then, I stared past the ghost and simply breathed.
In.
Then out again.
I rolled my suitcase forward as if nothing stood there at all.
After a few moments, she drifted toward the edge of the courtyard and vanished into the cliff side fog.
Good.
I was not traveling across realms to babysit ghosts.
That was the lie I told myself when the fear crept in.
When doubt tried to claw its way back into my chest like it used to—sharp, suffocating, familiar.
