Iseult flew. Her back hit the tree. Her skull too, and stars flashed over her vision. But Corlant wasn’t done. A gust of winds laced with fire lashed out, catapulting her up, up, through snow and Threads and frozen shadows. Then she was above the trees and sucked into Corlant’s spinning storm.

Winds hit her, collapsing her lungs, and erasing all sight. There was only snow and wind and unconsciousness clawing in. She could do nothing. She had no army. She had no stolen power, and the lives of the Cahr Awen couldn’t help her here.

Then as quickly as she’d been siphoned upward, she was tossed back down. A sack of organs and bone, she hit the ground with such force she couldn’t even feel the pain. There was only death rushing in.

And cold. A distant, numbing cold from a Void Paladin’s Threads.

Laughter trickled into Iseult’s hazy, spinning awareness. You have no idea what I can do, daughter, and this is not a fight you can win. As if to prove his point, the earth began to shake. First a lurch beneath Iseult’s back. Then a quivering that rattled her teeth and kicked up snow. Winds roared in her ears, yet the earth roared louder.

With each fraction of a heartbeat that passed, more shadows coiled up around her. As if the earth itself were cleaving—as if Corlant had taken too much power, and now the soil died. Ropes sliced over her and held her down. More, more, hundreds of them, then thousands. She couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel. There were only shadows and snow. Lightning and pain.

She would die here. One more dark-giver fallen to Corlant’s power.

And so much power it was. Too much power. She’d been a fool to think she could ever beat him. Fool, fool, always a stupid fool.

I’m sorry, Alma. I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry, Safi.

As the last of consciousness faded and the last of her senses rubbed away, Threads punctured in. They replaced the earth’s shadows. Silver and hungry and burning with eternal rage. Corlant, she thought, come to end her once and for all.

Except that instead of destroying her, the Threads only closed in. Instead of laughing at her, they softened into understanding.

The shadow wyrm, she realized distantly. It had found her, and rather than devour, it was protecting. A shield against the storm with no cold to pitch off it, nor even Void darkness. It was simply a monster who had lived too long, beholden to a master it feared.

Slowly, Iseult’s senses returned. The twisted world of snow and storm was replaced by a billowing chest covered in onyx scales. Its heart beat, bound in silver Threads.

And in the sunset bond of family.