Vogel glances at his corrupted army and swings his intent gaze back to me as Yvan battles back line after line of Shadow Mages. “You’re going to bring on the Reaping Times, my fastmate,” he smoothly intones. “Destroy the Icaral, Black Witch. And take the East for the Magedom.”

And then my feet are in motion and I’m forced astride a Shadow dragon, the army of Mages astride dragons falling into formation around me. Vogel touches his Wand to my dragon’s flank and sends out Shadow bindings to secure me to its back, then spells a translucent gray shield around me that sends a slithering chill over my skin.

A soldier holding the white-bird flag of Gardneria secures its pole to my dragon as I internally scream my revolt.

“Rise, my Black Witch,” he triumphantly prods, beaming at me as both he and the soldier step back. “Rise for the Holy Magedom.”

Tightening my lines to the near-breaking point, I struggle to draw my power back from Vogel as my dragon advances toward the ledge’s cliff. Dread racing through my veins, the dragons fan out shard-scaled wings, accelerate across the ledge and leap off it, vertigo assaulting me as the horde takes to the sky along with a swarm of wraith bats. Wings slam down in a unified, powerful whoosh as I’m launched forward out toward the Shadow-covered dome and river, everything within me screaming—

Take me down, Yvan!

CHAPTER THREE

NOI’KHIN STORM

Trystan Gardner

Voloi, Noilaan

I lean over Vothe’s scaled back as he soars down toward the Vu Trin massed across the First Tier’s Voling Plaza, keeping tight hold of one of his shoulder spikes as lightning scythes through us both. Outrage sizzling through me, I take in the tide of Shadow rolling across the plaza, all color cut out save my blaringly Mage green skin.

The plaza rising beneath us is a temporary oasis, tenuously controlled by Vu Trin forces. Wyvern Vu Trin are positioned around it, two of them casting a lightning spitting shield over its expanse.

Vothe and I easily penetrate the shield, our joint magic briefly pushing back the dense lightning. I take in the heaps of Mage and Shadow dragon corpses. But the Mages keep coming in seemingly endless waves, and even though Vothe and I took out scores of them as we flew in, it’s clear we’re disastrously outnumbered.

Columns of smoke billow from the city’s tiers, blue lightning spitting in my vision as I take in the decimation, broken dragons lording over the skies, battling the sparse Vu Trin forces stationed on this side of the Vo Mountains.