“The people here...they don’t understand you at all,” she says, impassioned, her senses full of the Forest, of him, of her own heartbeat pulsing in her chest, of everything. “You’re the seed for all of it. For the entire balance of the Forest. The decay. The death. The rotted soil. It’s the start of everything.”

“Now go back to the pool,” Viger says as he angles his head toward the shadowed puddle.

Tierney looks toward the lifeless water as trepidation swells. She kneels by the stagnant pool, pushes her hand back into the water, and closes her eyes.

Tendrils of Shadow fly though her lines, and a different sort of pull takes hold, spiraling her down, down, and down. Not into the earth. Not into a deep, dark, pause.

Into an endless void. An abyss.

The end of everything.

Tierney wrests her hand from the water and falls back onto the ground, suddenly terrified as she glares at the puddle with fresh eyes. Trees rustle all around as the flock of ravens descends once more, one perching on Viger’s shoulder and pressing close to his neck. Viger stills and closes his eyes, as if listening carefully to the raven.

When he opens his eyes, there’s a terrifying edge of fear in his gaze.

“It’s not just one pool of Shadow death,” he says. “There is water like this all over this forest.”

Alarm bolts through Tierney. “He’s here,” she rasps out. “Somehow, Vogel’s here. And he’s going to destroy the natural balance.”

“They think him far away across a vast desert,” Viger says ominously as he eyes the dark pool like a predator eyeing a much more powerful predator. “But he is already here, somehow. And not just in the corrupted animals that have been found. His many-eyed beasts. He’s entrenched in the natural world of the Eastern Realm.”

“We need to ward the Vo,” Tierney says, panic mounting as she rises and grasps Viger’s arm, the ravens’ eyes all focused on her. “I need you, Viger. I know Deathkin can conjure strong wards. Help me protect my waters and all the life of the river. And then, help me warn the Vu Trin and my Asrai’kin. We need to ward all of Noilaan’s waterways. Xishlon needs to end right now.”

Viger nods and Tierney’s grip on him tightens as they fall into complete Fae alliance with each other. “Help me any way you can,” she implores, holding his kindred stare as his eyes pool to solid black. “Or Vogel’s going to destroy the natural world.”

CHAPTER THREE

XISHLON STORM

Vothendrile Xanthile

Xishlon night, twenty-first hour

“The moon’s pull...it’s strong.”

Trystan’s words are hesitant as he gazes at the shimmering lavender orb, its reflection a dazzling spectacle on the river below.