Lukas slants his eyes upward and takes in the corrupted Marfoir Elves scuttling up the walls on salt-white spider legs and the elongated, many-eyed wraith bats that hang from every outcropping. Shadow-polluted scorpios line the cavern’s base, the huge insects quietly chittering, their thoraxes marked with Shadow runes. Most of the scorpios have additional eyes, and Lukas spots one with a neck and head covered in a solid mass of them.

The power in his lines fires up, hot in his chest. He scans the scene once more, gaze flickering toward the wand grasped in his guard’s green-glimmering hand. Stealthily, he begins to test his Shadowy bindings and finds a slack portion just over his left hand...

As if sensing his fledgling rebellion, the guard meets Lukas’s eyes with a pitiless gray stare and lifts his wand.

A bolt of Shadow hits Lukas, triggering a blast of pain that arches his spine, a rasping cry forced from his mouth as his vision blots out.

When he comes to, he’s in motion, four Mages dragging him through a black stone tunnel. Torches burning with silver-spitting gray fire cast a fitful pewter light.

He grits his teeth as his back slides against the rough floor, the wounds that crisscross his skin a knife-slicing agony. He flexes his muscles, testing the tightness of his bindings. Locating the proximity of every wand...

His Mage guards slow, and Lukas twists his head around to find Vogel striding toward him, pale green eyes blazing. There’s a white bird emblazoned on Vogel’s priestly tunic, his dark cloak flowing behind him.

The Mage soldiers dump him at Vogel’s feet.

Panting from the pain reverberating through his lines, Lukas forces himself to his knees. He meets Vogel’s gaze dead-on and gives him a vicious smile. “Hello, Marcus. The demon-priest aesthetic suits you.”

Vogel rears back and strikes Lukas across the face, white-hot rage igniting as Lukas lunges for him only to be quickly bound up in more Shadow vines by the surrounding Mage guards and pinned to the floor, arms outstretched, their four wands leveled at him.

He glares up at Vogel, teeth bared as fury pulses through him. “I’d like to see you try that without your Shadow pets to hold me back,” Lukas hisses.

Even through his all-encompassing rage, he can’t help but notice the flash of frustrated fury in Vogel’s eyes.

“Ah,” Lukas chides, ignoring the blood streaking his face and the throbbing pain in his cheek. “Have your plans gone awry?” He broadens his smile, hoping to goad Vogel, desperate for information about Elloren. “She’s slipped out of your grasp, hasn’t she?”

Vogel narrows his gaze and runs his fingers over his Wand, looking more composed now, though his eyes are strangely edged with silvery fire.