Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 85

Tibs's stifled scream had him sitting up and looking around the room, searching for the...thing that had nearly reached him, already knowing it was not real; hadn't been real when he'd first seen it a few days before, had ran from it and the terror it inspired.

He had been certain he'd been careful, let only the smallest strand reached the node of sight, and at first, thing were as he'd expected. Secrets had become more visible, unimpeded by walls and buildings. They had gained definition. The shape of a person, surreptitiously taking coins from a box, someone in bed with someone else, moving in ways Tibs had wished he could stop seeing. At least there had been no details to the shapes. The something else had pulled his attention from all the other secrets by how much larger it was.

Tibs had carefully made his way to the mouth of the alley. A secret this large might be dangerous, and it had been right there, still indistinct among the townsfolk. A cloud of it had been spreading ever everyone there, clinging to them as they exited it. He had thought he could make out something within the secret, so, to pierce it, he had allowed only a sliver more into the node.

He'd screamed at the sight, had turned and run. He had cursed himself for not listening to Khumdar's warning as those lifeless eyes stayed with him even as he had run and fought to pull the darkness out, hoping to forget them and the rest of the thing darkness had created. It's multiple appendage piercing through the people around it. It's maw with too many, too long teeth.

Then had the sense of it hounding his steps, as he had run for the safety of his room. A sense of hunting him that had remained even after he'd finally freed the node of all darkness, suffused himself with purity, slammed the door to his room shut.

A sense of being prey that woke him multiple times a night since.

* * * * *

Tibs nearly barged into Kroseph's room, barely regaining enough control to knock first.

That the server hadn't been in the inn when Tibs entered wasn't unexpected. With the sickness going around, there weren't as many customers, so not all the servers were needed. Even Jackal's absence could be explained. He was having them time with Kroseph, or he was out to the pit, or to train the Omega Runners, or at the merchants or... there could be so many reasons, but none of them would have explained the look of fear Russel had given him, before his eyes flicked to the door leading to the stairs.

"It's Tibs." He extended his sense until he made out Jackal and Clara and someone he could barely sense, who had to be Kroseph, lying on the bed.

He'd kept his sense tight to him since his last botched attempt at using darkness with his node of sight, because this time, it had also left him with this certainty that the delusion was lurking in all the places he couldn't see.

He was in before either said anything.

Jackal was seated on the far side of the bed, holding Kroseph's too pale hand, while Clara sat on the other side, tiredly glaring at the unmoving Kroseph.

"How is he?" Tibs whispered, hoping she'd know more than what his sense told him.

"He's not dead," she replied angrily.

Tibs stared at her in surprise. "Isn't that good?"

"Of course it's good. It just makes no sense!" She ran a hand over her face, grumbling. "Nothing about this makes any sense."

"How doesn't it make sense?" Tibs looked at Jackal, but he was looking at his man, seemingly unaware of them.

She motioned to Kroseph. "His father asked for a cleric when he fainted during the night."