If you keep fighting each other for the crown, there won't be any kingdom left to rule.I slammed both hands onto the center of the oak table, letting the deep vibration of my voice echo through the tense silence of the command tent. Garrick glared at me from beneath his bushy gray eyebrows, his hand still resting on the hilt of his heavy broadsword. Across from him, Kassia stood with her arms crossed, her jaw tight and her eyes flashing with a dangerous, green fire that practically demanded blood.We are wasting time while our people bleed in the mud, I said, looking between them.The captain wants a flawless, parade ground march, Kassia spat, crossing the small space to glare at the older man. He wants to line up the infantry while the high mages use the forced-labor camps to suck the souls out of our families. Every single hour we wait, another shipment of raw magic crystals is sent up to the inner palace to fuel that golden wall.A disciplined army wins wars, Kas

The stench of rotting flesh and damp stone usually means death, but today, it smelled like victory.I kicked a broken iron grate out of my way, the heavy thud echoing through the dim, sunken corridor. The dungeon of High Mage Eldon was finally ours, breached and broken after hours of brutal fighting. Smoke still drifted from the upper levels, stinging my eyes, but I pushed forward through the gloom. My hands were slick with sweat and grime as I held my torch high, letting the flickering light cut through the shadows. Around me, the newly liberated prisoners were stumbling out of their cells, coughing, weeping, and dragging their chains across the floor.Are you the one who broke the gates? a voice called out from a dark corner.I turned my head, my boots crunching on the loose gravel. Yeah, I said, stepping toward a cramped cell with a shattered door. It is over. Eldon is gone. You are free.The man who sat inside did not jump up or run toward the light like the othe

The dead do not stay buried when their secrets can still overthrow a kingdom.I leaned against the heavy oak table in the center of the secondary armory, watching Captain Garrick systematically clean the dried blood from his steel gauntlets. The metallic rasp of his brush was the only sound breaking the heavy silence between us. My body felt like a single, massive bruise after the fight on the upper terrace, and the dragon crest under my collarbone throbbed with a slow, dull heat.We had just killed a high lord, saved the capital, and dismantled the high council, yet the old veteran looked grimmer than he had when the demonic hounds were breaching the lower wall.You need to sit down, Logan, Garrick said without looking up from his armor. You are bleeding through your vest again.I do not care about the blood, I replied, my voice raspy and tight. Malakor is dead. The rift is closed. Why do you look like we just lost the war?Garrick set the brush down with a heavy thud. He finally rai

The smell of old parchment and betrayal still hung heavy in the air when the first glass vial shattered against the stone floor.A thick, oily black smoke erupted from the shards, expanding with a violent hiss that swallowed the torchlight in a fraction of a second. It wasn't regular smoke. The moment it touched my skin, it felt like cold needles, blocking my vision entirely and leaving me in a pitch black void where I couldn't even see my own hands.Get down, Garrick roared from somewhere to my left.His warning was cut short by the sharp, metallic whistle of a crossbow bolt tearing through the darkness. A heavy thud followed, then the sound of wooden shelves splintering as a body crashed into them.Vivienne, where are you? I yelled, reaching out blindly into the freezing fog.Right here, her voice gasped, her hand suddenly gripping my leather vest. Her fingers were trembling violently. Logan, I can't channel. The smoke is laced with powdered null-stone. It is c

A captive assassin does not talk for the sake of mercy, but they will shatter when you take away their shadows.The rogue killer lay bound to a heavy wooden chair in the damp cellar of our forest hideout, his silver mask ripped away to reveal a young, scarred face dripping with sweat. The black fog from the river had finally cleared from my lungs, but the air in this underground room felt just as thick. Vivienne stood directly under the flickering light of a single tallow candle, her silver and blue investigator robes covered in dry mud, her face expressionless.You have three seconds to give me a name before I let the boy behind me look at you again, Vivienne said, her voice dropping into a cold, rhythmic whisper that made the prisoner flinch.I do not fear the dragon mutant, the assassin hissed, spitting blood onto the stone floor near my boots. The Silent Silks do not break for peasants.Vivienne did not yell. Instead, she leaned closer, placing a tiny, clear glas