“Ariel!” I choke out as she zooms away from the chaos, the raging war behind us rapidly reduced to muffled booms and puffs of bright light. Gray slashes across my vision as the images of Lukas blasting into gold and Yvan falling away from me replay in my mind, carving my heart open even as I realize, with mounting devastation, that Vogel’s hold on me is once more gaining ground.

Ariel soars over the grayed runic border, toward the night-darkened forest beyond, my panic cresting as Vogel’s power digs into me. Cast into internal war, I painfully contract my lines, desperate to flee from him and barely able to register Ariel angling us toward a clearing and descending. The trees’ dark canopy rises to meet us, the Forest’s hatred bearing down with suffocating weight as we land in a clearing and Ariel releases me.

I stagger, thrown off-balance, then wheel around to face her in the dark as tendrils of Shadow ripple back over my lines. The gut-wrenching reckoning strikes home—the only one who can drive Vogel from me with his Wyvernfire kiss has been decimated by my own hand—Yvan, lost to me, possibly slain.

And Lukas...

I can barely finish the thought, barely wrap my mind around the finality of it.

Gone forever.

Brutal, eviscerating despair grips hold and it’s hard to breathe around it, my emotions gutted as I struggle not to come unmoored.

A sudden burst of silvery-gold light illuminates the clearing and I flinch, a churning ball of flame hovering just above Ariel’s upturned palm, her raven kindred perched on her shoulder.

A dart of shock punctures my agony and for a split second, all I can do is gape at her.

She’s a marvel—strong, glistening wings fanning out from her back, her eyes burning gold with Wyvernfire. She’s filled out and more muscular now, her jaw seeming squarer, her black hair spiked, her fingers tipped with black talons. She has the same defiant gaze, but her eyes are no longer manic. Solid and strong, she positively radiates power, and I can sense the flame that’s coursing through her unimpeded.

A fire that burns with incredible heat.

Her fiery eyes give me the once-over, fierce concern in them. “You don’t look so good, Black Witch.”

I lurch toward her. “Ariel, kill me,” I rasp. “Vogel’s taking over my power and my mind.” I hold up a Shadow-fasted hand and blanch, undulating loops of smoke slithering over it.

“What did he do?” Ariel growls.

A more vicious rush of Vogel’s power blasts into me, slicing over my affinity lines in a razing tide. I cry out and fall to the forest floor.