“Mora,” Fyon says, turning to her, the moment so fraught with unbearable tension his verdant nudity only half registers. “Are all of the children on board?”

“I think so,” Mora says, the words strained as she rushes to the window and takes in the gash across the mutilated mountains, the dark smoke pouring from it, pale fog rising up.

She looks to Fyon, horrified.

The purple moonlight glinting on his emerald-patterned face darkens, the chiseled edges of his features cast in ashen shadows. They look back out the circular window to find the Xishlon moon turned into a Shadow moon and an avalanche of darkness barreling down the rune-marked Vo Mountains toward the tent city just past its base.

“Vogel’s invading.” Fyon’s jaw ticks as he points toward the second line of misty runes forming in the storm band above the mountain’s apex, a strange, dark lightning now coursing through it. He sets his piercing gaze back on Mora. “He’s taken hold of the storm band. To keep our forces trapped west of the Vo Range.”

The pieces assemble themselves into terrible clarity inside Mora’s mind. How the Mage forces appeared to be gathering at the Central Desert’s western edge to draw Noilaan’s forces west to meet with them, the East now essentially unprotected and caught up in Xishlon...

“Holy gods, Fyon...”

“We need to get the children and anyone else we can fit onto this ship,” he says. “Then we need to take them to the sublands.” He jabs his finger toward the borderline. “Then we’ll fly out there and help get everyone trapped behind the border to the sublands, as well.”

Mora nods, her resolve gaining a steeliness to match Fyon’s as they swing into action.

He throws on his emerald pants and tunic, then rapidly fastens his Smaragdalfar rune blade and stylus onto himself before grabbing his crossbow and quiver. Mora yanks open a side-table drawer and pulls out her rune stylus and dagger, the varg runes imprinted on her blade casting her in a green glow as she fastens her belt sheath around her waist and secures her weapons.

Fyon reaches out to grip her arm as she moves toward the door. “Mora, listen to me. We’ll need to get to the fyyl’vor’in subland entrance, since it’s warded with varg runes. Get the ship ready to launch and I’ll connect a stronger varg ward to its power. Those runes are the only runes in this city likely to survive.”

“Which means we’ll be the only ship left in the skies,” Mora warns. “So we’ll have a giant target on our backs.”

Fyon narrows his gaze, emanating lethal calm. “We’ll deal with it.”

Mora nods, no time left to deliberate the odds as Fyon throws open the door and they rush onto the starboard deck.