A skeletal hand burst from the ground beside Elvyn, grabbing her ankle. She screamed, twisting, and sent a pulse of cold racing down her leg that shattered the bones into splinters. Another hand erupted from the earth, then another, then a dozen, a whole forest of skeletal arms clawing at her from every side. Elvyn leapt backward, her robes whipping around her, and unleashed a ring of frost that blasted the nearest hands to powder.“Do you remember when we used to practice together?” Melissa called out, her voice weirdly cheerful. “Behind the barn, in the winter, when Father was away? You always won. You were always so much stronger.”“I do not want to fight you, Melissa!”“Then you should not have come!”A massive force slammed into Elvyn’s side, a whirling column of bone and shadow that lifted her off her feet and threw her across the hollow. She hit the ground, rolled, and came up on one knee, coughing blood into her sleeve. Her bandages had torn open, and fresh red stained the vio

The Blackwater Clan’s stronghold stood on a high, windswept ridge where the pines grew black and crooked and the mist rolled down from the northern peaks every evening like a slow tide. Its walls were built of dark river stone, and its roofs were steep and slate-grey, made to shed the heavy snows that came early and stayed late. Inside the main hall, a great hearth burned with a low, steady fire, and the whole house smelled of woodsmoke, dried herbs, and old books.Elder Williams sat in his high-backed chair beside that hearth with a tablet of notes balanced on his knee, though he had not written a word on it in the last hour. His pale amber eyes were fixed on the flames, and his dark hair, streaked with silver, had fallen forward over his brow. He looked like a man listening for something just beyond the edge of hearing.“Father?”A small voice broke into his thoughts. Elias, his youngest son, stood at the foot of the chair in his nightshirt, clutching a worn wooden horse in one hand

Seraphine’s smile faded, but a little of the tension had gone out of her shoulders. “You are trying to charm me out of an argument.”“I am trying to tell you why I must go.”“Then tell me.”Elder Williams stepped closer and took her free hand between both of his. His amber eyes, usually so cool and measured, burned with an intensity that made her catch her breath.“Three nights ago,” he said, “I dreamed of him. Not an ordinary dream. I felt the power, Seraphine, the way a drowning man feels the water. A golden light, like nothing I have touched in forty years of studying the bloodlines. It rose in the dark like a second sun. And I knew, as surely as I know my own name, that if I do not teach that boy to master it, it will master him.”“And if it does?”“Then he will burn,” Elder Williams said quietly. “And everyone near him will burn with him. Darius. Varek. The Hand. And hundreds of innocent people who happen to stand in the way. The power is not evil. It is simply enormous, and a ch

Sleep did not come easily to the stronghold that night. Elder Williams sat for hours at the long oak table in the great hall with Kester across from him, a map of the realm unrolled between them and weighed down at the corners with a dagger, an inkpot, a lump of cold iron, and one of Elias’s wooden horses. Candle wax pooled and hardened on the table’s edge. Outside, the wind had risen to a low howl through the pines.“The main road is out of the question,” Kester said, tracing a line with one scarred finger. “Lord Darius has Pale Scribe garrisons at every bridge from here to the Marrow Ford. They’ll be checking papers and wagon beds, and they’ll be looking for anyone who carries himself like a soldier.”“Then we do not carry ourselves like soldiers,” Elder Williams said.“My lord, you cannot help it. You walk into a room and the air changes.”“Flatterer.”“It is no compliment. It is a problem.” Kester’s mouth twitched. “I’d suggest the old forest paths through the Thornwood, then east

“The Aegis of the Thirteenth,” Ysolde said quietly. “I carried it at Ashgrove. I carried it for forty years after. It has turned aside everything the world could throw at it, and it has never once broken.”“Mother,” Elder Williams whispered. “This is the clan’s greatest treasure.”“It was made for a bearer of the golden clover,” Ysolde said. “Not for a Watch commander. I held it only because no one else came to claim it, and I swore I would keep it until one did.” She looked up at her son with eyes bright and sharp as polished glass. “Give it to the boy.”“If he does not accept it?”“He will.”“And if he is not worthy?”“Then it will tell you.” She smiled faintly. “The shield has opinions, Williams. You will see.”Elder Williams bowed his head once more, then knelt and ran his hand lightly across the cool metal. A low hum answered his touch, soft as a purring cat, and the golden leaf at the top flickered faintly.“It knows,” Ysolde said. “It has been waiting a very long time.”“I will