A strange hissing sound rises from above and they peer up through the canopy’s boulder-smashed breaks. A line of huge gray runes glows just above a gash near the range’s peaks and Tierney watches, horror-struck, as a tide of dark mist bubbles from the gash and waterfalls downward, barreling straight toward them.

They step backward, their hands finding each other while a thinner, gauzy fog rises from the gash toward the heavens.

And then the Xishlon moon’s purple light cuts out.

A fuller darkness descends, and Tierney moves closer to Viger at the same time that he pulls her into a half embrace. Pulse racing, she yanks a rune light from her pocket and flicks it on.

The Noi rune inside the glass vial casts the stark planes of Viger’s face in an otherworldly sapphire glow as a tide of undulating, thigh-deep fog advances through the trees. Tierney’s throat tightens as they take another step backward, the Shadow twining around trunks and brush, streaming relentlessly in.

Viger snarls as they’re engulfed in it, both Tierney’s blue hue and the vial of sapphire rune light tinting to shades of gray. Fright rearing, Tierney holds up the grayed vial and her alarmingly color-stripped hand.

Demonic Shadow, Viger says into her mind, his deep voice vibrating through her. His fully blackened gaze intensifies. “Vogel is in the mountains.”

Tierney’s internal power bursts into storming chaos. Her thoughts fly to the combined magic she and Viger sent toward the Vo and Zonor Rivers to ward-protect them.

“Do you think our warding of the waters will hold?” she asks.

Viger’s beat of hesitation ratchets up Tierney’s protective fright as a helix of Shadow curls around her rune light. The light blinks out of existence, thrusting them into complete darkness.

Tierney swallows, gripping her now useless light. “It’s just like Elloren warned,” she rasps. “Vogel’s Shadow destroys runes.”

She can feel Viger’s gaze sharpen on her. Elloren Grey is here?

Tierney freezes, realizing she’s just revealed Elloren’s presence to a Death Fae whose true allegiance is unknown. “Viger, you don’t understand this,” she forces out. “You’ve only read my fears...”

Viger’s hand clamps around her arm. “The Black Witch is in the Eastern Realm?”

“She’s our ally,” Tierney entreats as the chilling Shadow courses around them.

A low, undulating language rises from Viger’s throat and resonates through Tierney. He grows silent as a chorus of earsplitting screeches breaks out overhead.

Ice flashes through Tierney’s power.

Broken dragons.

A nearby whoosh of wings sounds through the darkness as something huge flies in, the branches above Tierney jostled by the incoming beast. Fear exploding, she struggles to pull away from Viger as her panicked mind whirls. Did he summon a broken dragon here? Are the Death Fae in league with Vogel? Was Fyordin right about them all this time?