When the world springs back into focus I’m encased in a new body. Lukas is lying at my feet, blood streaming from fiery gashes on his neck, shoulders, and sides, his expression blank, his eyes full of gray fire.

My emotions spin into chaos, roiled by a love so fierce it bucks my hold. Lukas! I yearn to scream, but I can’t move, my devastation whiplashing into a violent confusion.

I’m paralyzed, Vogel’s Shadow surging over my affinity lines in a writhing violation, his dead tree branching through my mind. I look down and find myself in Mage soldier garb, the white bird on silken black marking my flat, masculine chest, a silver Erthia orb pinned near my shoulder.

The mark of Gardneria’s High Mage.

Rage spasms through me.

I’m going to kill you! I lash out from where I’m trapped inside of Vogel as his gray tree winds around my lines in a viselike tether. And then we’re moving, Vogel’s vicious triumph infusing my frenzied thoughts as he forces me to survey his endless lines of soldiers and dragons and Shadow creatures. He doesn’t slow as he drags me past them, their heads pivoting toward him with terrifying synchronicity. Then he turns, and we advance through a narrow, dark stone tunnel, its far end suffused with violet light that intensifies as the tunnel opens onto a small, flat terrace.

Vogel strides onto the windswept ledge, a precipitous drop before us, a cool breeze whipping at our hair, a dark mountain range spread out to either side.

And a luminous purple moon hanging overhead.

The horrific realization hits with ravaging strength, like a dagger-strike to my soul, the breath seizing in my lungs as I take in the vast river before us, dotted with countless boats sparkling with violet light, the glowing blue borderline and dark tent city just before it. And the tiered mountain city rising from the river’s distant bank, every tier bathed in festive purple light, Noilaan’s protective dome arcing above it all.

Vogel’s here, I think as shock breaks through me. He’s been right here all this time.

Building an army inside the Vo Mountain Range.

Vogel slides our eyes over the river toward the apex of the distant Voloi Mountains, his gaze zeroing in on the exact spot where I imagine Or’myr’s glamoured Vonor to be.

Horror claws through me with unraveling power as the thought sears into being—

You’re a warrior, Elloren. Fight him.

Lukas’s words blaze through my mind and I choke against them, grappling with my terror, but the words hold firm.

He’d want you to rise up.

He’d want you to fight.