Blackfeather Woods with all the taste i desire

maybe @The Ghost? for reference he's in nightcaller's temple.

as scarab makes his thru wispmother's grotto, lapis lazuli gaze noting the small illuminating sprites that dance around the spindly boughs of the witchtrees, he worries he's losing grasp on reality. a concern solidified by the presence of the illusory spectre — a looming, partially skeletal omen. ever since the burning fever, despite how scarab has recovered from it, the phantom of his dreams boldly crosses the fade into scarab's waking hours too. not always ...but more and more days are spent in the chimerical omen's presence. scarab cannot help the stray of his gaze to the stone alter that emerges before him thru the thick fog that writhes around him like a breathing entity at the grotto's center.

the spectre bounds ahead in a fizzle of lazily drifting cinders and appears upon the sacrificial alter, though the rains have mostly washed it clean there are areas of the sacrosanct stone that remain blackened with old blood. get off of that. ordered only after looking this way and that to assure he was alone — lest he be caught talking to something only he can see. the lounging spectre stretches, sprawling out with all the leisure of a cat basking in sunlight, studiously ignoring the haunted golden prince. a chill creeps down his spine that has little to do with the cold that permeates the morning air.

a raven swoops down then, perching upon a low hanging branch, causing it to scrape against the stone. scarab's gaze flickers to it quick, watching its beady black gaze take him in before its head turns to the spectre and the raven lets out a loud caw, startling the silence. two death omens ...wasn't one enough? scarab cannot help but wonder.

nanowrimo: 291