Arc 5: Chapter 28: A True Knight
“Catrin?”
I stared into the grave pit. Like an idiot, I waited for a response, my hand outstretched as if I expected she might suddenly reach out from the darkness and grasp it.
She had grasped it. I had her, and then…
“No. No, no, no, no, no, no.”
The voice didn’t sound like my own. It came out as a pathetic whine, my head shaking from side to side. A dull pressure throbbed in my chest.
“No. Cat, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…”
This wasn’t happening. This was another bad dream, a nightmare. I was still in that hateful forest with the dead, with the Shadow, being tormented by my worst fears.
I was half right. I did kneel there among the dead, and they were all too happy to gloat as the mist spilled into the crypt to swirl around me.
“Did it again, crusader.”
“Smote the evil well!”
“Sent it right back into the dark, into the fire, where it belongs…”