Chapter 29: Fleshcraver

Elara woke to urgent hands shaking her shoulder.

“Up. Now.”

Alvia’s voice was low and sharp. Around them the other white elves were already moving—silent, efficient, faces set. Heavy fur cloaks were thrown over Elara’s shoulders. Within moments the small group was descending from the platforms into the mist-choked forest floor.

“North,” Alvia ordered. “It’s the only direction left.”

They ran.

Behind them, the remaining white-elf warriors turned to face the approaching threat, spears and bows ready. They would buy time with their lives.

—

Morgana felt the deception the moment the mist thickened unnaturally around them.

Her amber eyes narrowed. She raised one hand and spoke a single, cutting word of power. A shockwave of force exploded outward. The carefully woven mist shredded like wet cloth, revealing the true shape of the forest for the first time.

In the sudden clarity she saw them: a small group fleeing north, golden hair flashing among the pale cloaks of the white elves.

“There.”

The remaining white-elf warriors stepped out of the trees to intercept. They were few, exhausted, and already grieving. Morgana did not give them the courtesy of a prolonged fight.

Dark power gathered around her like a living cloak. The first volley of arrows simply dissolved before reaching her. The second was turned back on the archers themselves. When the spearmen charged, Morgana met them with precise, brutal efficiency—one gesture crushed a ribcage, another snapped a neck, a third sent a body folding in on itself as if the bones had been removed. She moved through them like a cold wind through dry leaves.

Nyx fought as well, blade flashing, but her attention kept drifting north. One white elf marked her specifically and lunged. Nyx parried, countered, and drove her sword through the woman’s chest with a sharp cry. The body fell. Nyx did not linger.

“Nyx!” Morgana’s voice cracked across the clearing. “Do not—”

But Nyx was already running, red eyes locked on the distant flash of golden hair.

“Don’t run! Come back here, hero!”

Morgana cursed under her breath and finished the last of the white elves with a final, contemptuous surge of power. Bodies lay broken among the roots. The mist, no longer held back by the dead elves’ runes, began to creep in again—thicker, hungrier than before.

By the time Morgana turned north, both Nyx and the fleeing pair were gone from sight. Her scrying charms slid uselessly across the returning fog.

“Nyx!” she shouted. “Where are you?!”

Only the mist answered.

—

Nyx pushed deeper into the grey.

Branches clawed at her clothes. The cold bit through her gloves. She kept calling, voice raw.

“Hero! I order you to come out! I’m the only one who will protect you—I won’t hurt you! We’ll escape together!”

Silence.

Then, ahead, a familiar figure stepped out from between two trees.

Golden hair. Blue eyes. The same face Nyx had obsessed over for so long.

Elara.

She stood calmly, almost smiling, as if she had been waiting.

Nyx’s breath caught. Her free hand rose in instinctive guard.

“You’re here. Where is that elf bitch?”

The figure that wore Elara’s face walked closer, steps light on the forest floor.

“I’m right here,” she said, voice soft and certain.

Nyx took a step back. “Stay—stay where you are.”

The false Elara only smiled, warm and strangely knowing. She closed the distance and reached up, fingers brushing through Nyx’s short black hair with unexpected tenderness.

“Why don’t you want me?”

Nyx’s face flushed hot. “You’re… acting strange. Did they do something to you? Tell me the truth. Or did you… with that elf—”

The laugh that answered her was low and musical.

“How funny.” A fingertip touched the tip of Nyx’s nose, then withdrew. “I saved myself completely for you. My sister pushed me so hard… Did you come all this way just for me? I’ve been waiting.”

Nyx’s pupils widened. Her voice cracked.

“Are you… serious? You’re not just pretending so you can escape?”

The false Elara leaned in and kissed her—soft, lingering, almost reverent.

“No, my dear. No one understands what you’ve been through better than I do. It was so heavy, wasn’t it?”

Something inside Nyx broke. Tears spilled over.

“But I… I tried to do terrible things to you—”

Gentle thumbs wiped the tears away.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“My sister—she’s going to kill you. We have to run.”

“Shhh. Be calm. She’s busy right now. Follow me.”

Nyx followed without further question.

A low cave mouth opened between moss-covered rocks. They stepped inside. The air was warmer, damper.

“What are we going to do here?” Nyx asked, still breathless.

The figure turned, eyes half-lidded.

“Belong to each other. Don’t you want that? I desire you. I can’t wait any longer.”

Nyx’s throat worked. “I… I want you too. All right.”

Clothes whispered to the stone floor. The false Elara stood bare and pointed to the ground.

“Kneel. And lick.”

Nyx’s hands and arms trembled violently as she obeyed.

“P-please… if it hurts, just tell me, but—”

A delighted, almost giddy laugh.

“Ahhh, even better like that. I have no strength left to wait. Lick.”

Nyx leaned forward—

“Nyx! Nyx! Where are you?!”

Morgana’s voice, distant but growing clearer, cut through the trees outside.

The false Elara’s expression flickered with irritation.

“Hey. Leave her. There’s food here for you. Don’t disappoint me.”

Morgana’s calls came nearer. Nyx hesitated, still on her knees, staring up at the body in front of her.

“…Why do you smell so bad?”

A soft, wounded sound. “I smell bad? You’re hurting my feelings.”

“No—no, I’m sorry, that was rude, I just—”

Nyx’s gaze dropped lower.

“Why do your legs look strange? Why are your toes… fused together?”

She looked up.

The face above her was no longer Elara’s.

It was a ruin of misplaced features—mouth and eyes swapped, skin the colour of old bruises and rot, teeth too long and yellow. The body sagged and reformed in wet, wrong ways. A long, diseased tongue slid out between lipless gums.

Nyx screamed.

“No—no—no—!”

She scrambled backward. The thing that had worn Elara’s shape lunged, catching her by the hair and dragging her face forward.

“You’re tonight’s dinner,” it crooned in a voice like wet meat. “You’re not going anywhere.”

It forced her mouth against the putrid opening between its legs. Nyx gagged, thrashed, tried to scream around the foul flesh. The creature’s tongue—long, slimy, and fever-hot—dragged across her cheek, her throat, the edge of her collarbone as it began peeling her clothes away with clawed fingers.

“Please—please let me go—!”

The Fleshcraver only pressed harder, feeding on the terror and the rising scent of panic. Nyx’s screams turned high and broken, echoing out of the cave mouth into the mist.

Morgana burst into the clearing like a storm.

One look was enough. Dark power detonated from her hands, slamming into the creature and tearing Nyx free. The younger sister collapsed coughing and sobbing into the leaves. The Fleshcraver staggered but did not fall; its body simply rearranged the damage with wet, clicking sounds.

Morgana’s face twisted in pure revulsion.

“What in the endless dark are you, you filthy thing? And that smell—”

The creature’s ruined mouth stretched into something like a smile.

“One meal became two. First I will feed you with myself… then I will feed on you.”

“Nyx—behind me.” Morgana’s voice was iron. She swept the mist with a sharp glance. It was already closing in again, thicker than before. “We run. Now.”

She seized her sister’s arm and dragged her bodily away from the cave. The Fleshcraver’s laughter followed them—wet, delighted, and far too close—until the mist swallowed everything once more.