Vogel turns and meets Alaric’s gaze. His mouth twitches slightly upward and Alaric’s Level Five magery breaks into an explosion of blue in the back of his mind—the sacred Ironflower-hue his light magic is blessedly oriented toward. Alaric has carefully suppressed all attraction to forbidden colors, his childhood fascination with the cursed Fae hues of purple and saffron brutally expunged from him like poison.

Alaric steps tentatively toward Vogel, who is everything he aspires to be.

Marcus Vogel was a wonder on the long, treacherous voyage, battling the Western Ocean’s deadly kraken while its fabled storm band raged all around. He’ll never forget watching Vogel at the prow in the dead of night, wand raised, throwing bolt after bolt of silver-bright Magefire out to kill the mammoth beasts, some hit so hard their heads exploded into bloody mist.

He’ll also never forget the holy purpose he’s found on this ship, the entirely male crew all Styvian Gardnerians from the strictest of Mage homes. There are no forbidden spirits hidden aboard this ship. And the whole crew is wandfasted, even the teenage cabin boys. All save Priest Vogel. And himself. Their collective piety has filled Alaric with the euphoria of being guided by the Ancient One’s own hand toward the Reaping Times, the Evil Ones soon to be cleansed from the entirety of Erthia.

Alaric comes up beside Priest Vogel’s cloaked form, his heart thrumming. The dark mountaining clouds on the horizon arc outward, as if ready to enfold the ship in a dread embrace. And straight ahead, where cloud meets ocean, is the blurred form of a continent.

Vogel turns toward Alaric and the others, his piercing green eyes brimming with a zealous fire that sends a shiver through Alaric. Everyone stills.

“Blessed Mages,” Vogel says, “it is time to strike at the Evil Ones’ source of power.”

Alaric’s sense of the momentous gains ground as their ship moors inside an ancient breakwater. He grips the railing, disquiet rising as he takes in the unnatural clouds of roiling shadow above, curling into themselves like grotesque clusters of grapes, a tide of dark mist slithering toward their ship and then enveloping it, rippling over Alaric’s feet.

Alaric’s Level Five light affinity lines seize painfully as all the color in the world abruptly cuts out. Pulse leaping, Alaric glances at his skin to find his green hue disturbingly vanished like that of the Mages surrounding him, only a silver glimmer remaining. The Ironflowers marking the sails are now a flat gray, the previously green eyes of the crew now shades of steel.

Gripping the white bird pendant around his neck, Alaric murmurs the Ancient One’s Prayer of Protection. Purify Erthia from the stain of the Evil Ones...