Terrifying Wraiths in *Spells of Air*

 What are wraiths?

Read this excerpt from Spells of Air, the #fantasy trilogy that published on April 5.

Orielle rushed to the body, a woman by the head scarf and long skirts. She rolled her to her back.

A knife was embedded to the hilt in her breast. No blood had seeped around it. And a wraith lifted its head out of the hilt.

It poured up, striking at Orielle with hooked claws. She fell back then scrambled away, impeded by her long skirts.

The wraith formed over her, separating from the eldritch knife.

She recognized her dead great-uncle’s face. Raigeis bared his teeth, a grimace that the cold magister had never had in life. This was the wraith that had attacked her off the mountaintop. It heard her speak Raigeis’ name. It suffered Lady Bone’s punishment.

She felt the weight of a corporeal body on her legs as it flowed up. “Wizard,” it hissed.

Then Sangrior’s sword scythed the air.

The wraith darted back with the speed of a gusty wind. A second wraith had followed it out of the knife. Glacial steel snicked through the wispy vapor, dissipating it with the sword’s magic.

A third wraith started through the knife.

Sangrior swung for it, but the first wraith assaulted him. It seized his face and kissed his mouth … and began sucking life from him.

Grim leaped past her, going for the eldritch knife. The third wraith grabbed at him for a life-sucking kiss. Orielle hit it with a gusty burst of energy. It screamed as the wizardry blasted over it.

Grim fell back, eldritch knife in his hand, melting in his grasp.

As Orielle scrambled up, she glanced at the woman. Like Tobit, her body hadn’t vanished, flesh and bones not yet used up before the eldritch knife was removed. She must be the age of Zairantze, of Malva. Fortis’ woman? She had no time for more, for she focused on tracking the third wraith, still intent on Grim.

Enclave tutoring hadn’t prepared her for fighting wraiths or gobbers or wyre or Kyrgy. The ones that had fed from Brok had only drawn from him, not sucked away his life. She had killed the first by sending wizardry into it, a vortex spell that it had sucked down. The other, though, had escaped.

The second wraith reached for Grim. 

Hunter. Hunted. Who is who?

On a mission for the Wizard Enclave, Orielle ventures into the Wilding, 

a strange frontier filled with magical creatures. 

There she discovers sprites and wraiths, gobbers and wyre, 

and the mysterious Dark Fae called the Kyrgy.

All view her as prey.

Fetch it here.