Page 102 of Kingdoms of Night

“Intruders must die.” Words rumbling like a rockslide.

He lurched awake, his ears straining. Cold sweat bathed him, and his pulse raged.

That voice was real.

He swallowed hard as he fought to maintain his balance. The earth rocked beneath him.

Words choked in his throat. They wanted to emerge, a terrible harbinger of the nightmare yet to emerge. Whatever it was, it was coming. Not his stepfather. Something else, something bigger, and meaner.

Idalno was suddenly beside him. She had to know. Had to.

“It’s coming for us,” he shouted. He tried to push her in the direction of safety—wherever that really was—but his arm passed through air. “Intruders. Intruders must die.” The words rushed from his mouth. “Idalno, go!”

Yes, we go,Buttercup added.Running will mean living.

Hawthorn nipped Idalno’s skirt and tugged.Bad is coming. Very big bad.

Idalno caught ahold of Feron, her slim muscled arm tight as she pushed him back. Her voice was a rising and falling jumble of nonsensical notes. Was she talking or humming?

Whatever it was, he tried to push away, tottering on his feet like a cattail in the wind. His balance had gone somewhere, and he couldn’t find it. She seemed to want him back on the ground.

No! Something was coming. The wolves knew it as well as he did.

His head buzzed, the ringing in his ears intensifying. The very ground and plants seemed to be breathing around him.

The earth trembled.

Tremors shook through the forest, ringing in his ears.

Green orbs gleamed in the dark. Eyes.

A large shadow, inky black, loomed at the edge of the trees. That green gaze focused on them.

A limb, eerily long and thin, emerged from the foliage. The shadows fell like a cloak off an enormous gangly body, wooden, bearded, suffocated entirely by moss.

His mouth dropped open. A shiver trailed down his spine like a ghostly finger.

Bad,Hawthorn said with a whimper.Very big bad.

Change. If they were going to survive this, he needed to Change.

He brought a palm to his temple, trying to steady his head. The world would have to stop spinning for him to Change.

And it would help if he could stand steady for more than a few seconds.

The monster straightened, its towering height rising even higher, like a white elm ascending to become a red oak.

“Intruders!” The otherworldly voice thundered so loud it rocked Feron on his feet.

He reached for his own throbbing head again and missed, swiping the blur before him.

“Intruders must die! I am the spriggan, and you have intruded upon my land. You must die.”

His land?

“There wasn’t a sign,” he mumbled.

The world spun, colors bleeding into unrecognizable shapes. He would Change. He would fight.

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