A week had passed since Wade vanished, and the villagers of Norwick spoke in low voices of strange lights seen on the distant moors; will-o’-the-wisps, they claimed, though no one ventured out after dark to prove it.Wayne had thrown himself into the work of the manor: mucking stables, hauling firewood, running errands to the smithy. Anything to keep his hands busy and his thoughts from chasing his father’s departing shadow. Calley watched him with sharp eyes, saying little, but she matched him blow for blow in their dawn sparring sessions. Already the bruises on his arms had begun to yellow.That evening, rain lashed the manor walls and drummed on the slate roof. The three of them Alard, Calley, and Wayne sat alone in the smaller solar above the great hall. A single brazier glowed, throwing long shadows across the tapestries. Supper had been cleared away only a flagon of watered ale and three cups remained on the scarred oak table.Wayne stared into the coals. The question had been b

Word traveled faster than any horse when carried by mage fire.In the shadowed halls of Hidden Plague, where the Conclave gathered beneath their banners a white-robed messenger knelt before the council circle. His voice rang clear against the vaulted stone.“A spark of healing flared in the midlands, my lords. In the village of Norwick. Our seekers rode there and found nothing, no mage, no child of power. The villagers swear no gift has touched that place in years. Yet the weave does not lie.”The archmages murmured among themselves. Another false trail. Another dead end in their endless hunt for the prophesied child or for the vessel of Ramona herself.Wade stood at the edge of the circle, cloaked in travel-stained gray, his face gaunt from weeks of scrying and riding. When he heard the name Norwick, the world narrowed to a single terrible point.His son.The gift had not skipped Wayne after all or perhaps it had manifested late, raw and uncontrolled. Either way, the spark had paint

Wayne and Calley stood motionless, the weight of Garrick's glare pressing on them like a physical force. The room smelled of sweat, smoke, and the faint metallic tang of blood from the recent battle. Calley's stomach growled audibly, a traitor in the tense silence, and Wayne felt his own exhaustion pulling at him like chains. They had run for days, eating roots and berries, sleeping in snatches under brambles. Answers could wait but survival could not.Calley spoke first, her voice steadier than Wayne expected. "Captain... we're starving and tired. We've been on the road for days. Food and rest, please. We'll answer everything in the morning. On our word."Garrick's eyes narrowed, flicking between them as if measuring the truth in their faces. He was a hard man, forged in border skirmishes and long winters, but there was a flicker of something softer, shred of pity perhaps or memory of his debt to Alard."Alard's kin," he muttered, rubbing his bearded chin. "Fine. But mark my words to

In the frozen heart of Alnor, where the fortress walls wept ice and the wind howled like damned souls, the black riders returned. Their horses steamed in the bitter cold, flanks lathered from the punishing ride north. Snow swirled around them as they passed through the great iron gates, which groaned shut with a finality that echoed across the barren courtyard.At the center of the group rode the leader, his shadowed helm concealing all but the gleam of crimson eyes. Slung across his saddle like a sack of grain was Calley bound in chains of inky darkness that pulsed with malevolent life. She stirred weakly as they dismounted, her broken wrist throbbing and her temple bruised from the blow that had silenced her screams.Ramona awaited them in the throne hall, a vast chamber carved from black granite, lit by torches that burned with unnatural blue flames. She sat upon her obsidian seat, Kaleb a silent sentinel at her right. When the riders entered, dragging Calley forward and forcing he