Even though he makes no sound arriving, she can sense Viger’s Death Fae presence, her skin prickling from his aura’s low vibration. She wondered when he’d eventually show himself, remembering his promise to find her on Xishlon and show her how Vogel’s Shadow could be a threat to Death.

But right now she has more immediate concerns as she concentrates on the water swirling over her hand, because it’s all wrong. Barely perceptible tendrils of dark smoke curl up from the curiously inky puddle, everything in it dead.

Apprehension ripples through Tierney. It’s the same Shadow corruption she’s sensed before. But those times, the subtle trace of gray magic was both fleeting and distant. Now, here the Shadow is again. So curiously isolated. To this tiny, stagnant pool.

She can sense the river striving to wall it off. To deposit as much silt as possible to separate it from its source stream.

What are you seeding here, Vogel? Why is it scaring my river?

Tierney glances over her shoulder toward Viger, who has materialized from black mist, his pale face staring at her from just inside the forest’s shadows. A small thrill runs through her magic at the sight of him, as it always does, both the sizzle of fear and her unsettling draw to him commingled. A brief spike of conflict rises to be noticing Viger this way with the sting of Or’myr’s violet lightning still on her lips...

She meets Viger’s dark stare, some of the conflict subsiding as she loses herself to the feel of his otherworldly draw, his gaze on her a dark, probing force. It’s as if he can look right through her to pick apart her every secret corner.

And those raven eyes...

Get hold of yourself, Asrai, she chastises herself. You’re feeling the effects of that blasted moon. Are you planning on claiming all of the dangerous young men of the East as your Xishlon’virs? There are more important things to attend to this night than swooning over every young man who crosses your path.

She meets Viger’s gaze, his dark form still and motionless in the shadows. “I’m glad you’ve come,” she says, refusing to be unnerved by his eerily seductive presence. “There’s something very wrong.” She pulls her hand from the pool and motions him forward, brow tight with concern. “Viger...tell me if you can sense what’s been done to this water. Because this tiny puddle scared my kelpies.”

Viger strides to her, lowers his long frame, then places his chalk-white hand into the water, and closes his eyes.

Tierney scrutinizes him, his severe, hard-planed face so compelling. All three of the Wyvernguard’s Death Fae have his same morbid elegance—powerful Viger, spider-shifter Sylla, and mysterious, refined Vesper.