Chapter 135
Emiliia's POV
The earth quaked. Not ordinarily--but as though it were breathing. Alive. Beating. There it beat, beneath my feet, as though the earth had a heart, and I stood over it.
I held Nikolas's hand closer. I could feel the ice water running up my spine as my fingers turned numb, not due to the cold but to the sheer horror of it. And every breath was as though it stuck in my throat, as though something was strangling the air out of this place.
Nikolas did not say anything, but I could feel it in how his thumb slid against mine in an erratic, choppy rhythm. A language only fears I could write.
Then it showed itself.
The child.
No footsteps. No sound. Just there. Cross-legged in the center of the crumbling stone pathway, motionless as the dead man.
I was blinking on
