"Hello, Acolyte Voss. We have not spoken in a while."
The voice was not Rex's voice. It was lower, sounded older, and the cadence was wrong in a way I could not name precisely.
Then I realized that the words were arranged in the rhythm of a foreign language, translated into my native tongue without quite losing the foreign rhythm.
The voice was reaching me through Rex Aldran's mouth, but the voice had not learned to use that mouth. The lips moved a fraction late, and breath came in the wrong place.
I did not move. The cold spot covering my torso had not changed since Rex's possession. The weight of it was constant. Death-Touched was telling me that any motion I made, any cast, any strike, any attempt to break and run, would end with half my body obliterated.
The thing staring at me through Rex's dead eyes was not waiting to attack. It was choosing not to attack yet.
Yet, why did I find the cadence of its voice familiar?
