It’s a struggle to hold back the warning about Vogel’s Shadow abilities that both Lukas and Valasca charged me with bringing to the Vu Trin. But I’m certain that these sorceresses would never believe me. Unless I revealed to them who I really am.

And then they really wouldn’t believe me. They’d simply kill me.

No, I have to find my brothers and my other loved ones. And Yvan.

“I’m sorry,” the soldier Ru Sol says to me, heartfelt, and I can sense the remorse balling in her throat in the way her graceful neck and jaw tense. She glances around blankly, as if she’s grasping for something she can do to help. Then she reaches up and pulls off the necklace she’s wearing and hands it to me.

I stare at the ivory dragon pendant hanging from the chain, realizing it depicts Vo, the Noi Goddess of Compassion and Mercy. Two small pendants hang to either side of it—Vo’s messenger birds.

“Vo be with you,” Ru Sol says, her voice constricted.

I meet her gaze, incredulous. “We don’t need your dragon goddess,” I spit out. I glance toward Emberlyyn and Tibryl, who are caught up in another round of spasmodic coughing. “We need Norfure tincture and warm beds.”

And I need to prevent the imminent destruction of your entire realm!

“I’m sorry,” she says again before they take their leave. Ru Sol gives me one last devastated look over her shoulder before they step into the woods and slip out of sight.

I turn to find tears streaking down Nym’ellia’s face. “What do we do now?” the teen asks me, her voice tremulous.

Steel rises in me, hard and implacable. “We go east,” I tell her as I fist the hilt of my Ash’rion blade. “And we get past that border.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE ZONOR

Elloren Grey

The Zonor River
Eastern Realm
Two days prior to Xishlon

The Zonor River is a shock to the senses.

A stiff wind whips my gray hair against my face in stinging lashes as Nym’ellia, Emberlyyn, Tibryl, and I stare at its vast expanse in the twilight, its steel gray waters churning southward. It smells like cold energy. Like raw power licking the air. And I wonder what monstrous things could be lurking in its depths.

I look toward the black mountains beyond, their peaks almost as high as the Northern and Southern Spines. A lightning-charged line of storms tops its entire length. Wyvern-crafted storms. Deadly and impassible to all but the Noi military.

Don’t think on the odds, I urge myself. Just keep moving east.

I turn to Nym’ellia and find the young teen eyeing the Zonor with a look of serious trepidation as she carries little Tibryl, hugging her close. Lightning forks across the darkening sky.

“Is this the spot?” I ask.