Vogel thrusts my wand hand upward, and power erupts from my wand in a silvery, bolting torrent. A roar explodes through my ears, the magic rushing out of my body in a shock wave of pain. Both Yvan and the fire-sphere surrounding us are blasted back by the burst of magic, my stomach heaving as he’s hurled across the sky along with the scattering of Vu Trin forces on this side of Trystan’s stormwall, Vogel’s Mage horde now positioned disturbingly low just over the rippling Shadow tide.

My bolt of power hits Noilaan’s shadowed dome and fans out over its expanse.

The dome breaks apart in a crackle of thunder, its Shadow rolling into silvery orbs of Shadowfire suspended all over the gray sky. The orbs solidify and luminesce, like hundreds upon hundreds of explosive moons.

Vogel’s surge of righteousness ripples through me as I read the zealous punishment he’s about to rain down upon this land. To punish the Noi for their Vo Goddess love festival. To make a deadly mockery of their adoration of Xishlon’s purple moon.

Yvan begins to wing his way back toward me from across the sky, eyes scorching, and I can feel Vogel’s smile as he pulls on my Shadow-corrupted earth power.

My stomach quails as Vogel hisses a spell and forces my arm down, pointing my wand toward the river below.

Power explodes through me with seismic force, my silent scream ripping through my lines with the brutal wave of magic, a dark branch spearing from my wand to violently impale the river below.

The branch slams down through the water and triggers the manifestation of a great column of Shadow. It surges upward through the Shadow tide, straight toward me, large as a Wyvernguard Island, colossal branches bursting from it as it rises.

Yvan is forced backward, dodging branches as the column’s pinnacle slams into my dragon, the impact forcing my breath from my lungs as I’m pushed skyward and the great Shadow tree takes form. Its branches crash into Trystan’s stormwall, an explosion of blue lightning detonating as the wall collapses in a mist-clouding boom, my Shadow tree’s branches multiplying and thickening to form a new dome encasing the whole of Noilaan.

The skies split with shrieks as another wave of dragons pours from the Vo Mountains, the Shadow dragons massed above the river surging forward toward Voloi, the city once more heartbreakingly vulnerable.

Vogel forces me to flick my wand toward Yvan, my emotions rioting as my tree’s Shadow branches blast out to bind him. Panic curls under my ribs as Vogel drags him forward until he’s suspended before me, his arms and wings forced outward, hands bound into tight fists, his eyes a furious blaze as they meet mine.