Mag-log inARAHEEN
She sat in the interrogator’s chair positioned beside the cell door.
Her eyes drifted over Kohina, noting that the seer no longer showed any visible distress. Her hands had fully healed, both through her salamander physiology and the restorative magic of the sylphs. No trace of the horrific Devil Star damage remained.
Kohina had been given a simple white dress. Among the sylphs, it was meant to be degrading—a symbolic stripping away of the enemies
GILDEONWhen they returned to Shamibar, they found their people had already wiped out the remaining beasts and were cheering in grim celebration even as they tended the wounded and gathered their dead.Araheen told him what had happened to Kohina—her last words, the sacrifice she had made—and then he strode to the seer’s lifeless body.He dropped into a crouch beside her, wrapped a hand around her arm, and muttered, “Thank you for everything, Kohina. You’ll never be forgotten.”Then he gathered her into his arms and carried her while the salamanders prepared to return to their main base, where their fallen comrades would be given the funeral they deserved. By tradition, only the claws of slain warriors were taken from their bodies and burned on the battlefield. The seers were honored with a different rite.The sylphs offered them passage on their eagle mounts. He and Kohina rode behind Araheen on
ARAHEENAfter Yonah had been brought down, she and Gildeon returned at once to the Shining Keeper’s domain, shadow-walking once more through the Dark Plane. Both of them were exhausted, drained to the very marrow by the battle—Gildeon especially, his body still struggling to mend the grave injuries he had sustained. Even so, they pressed onward, spending what little strength remained on the journey.Araheen had also chosen not to tell him about Kohina just yet. She would not burden his mind while something far too important still remained to be done.When they arrived back in the domain, they found the Creator exactly as they had left her.She lay upon an elevated bed of flowers at the heart of the garden, a stab wound in her chest where Gildeon had driven Yonah’s dagger. Fresh golden blood still welled slowly around it, as though the wound had been preserved in the very state of her death.Araheen drew out her ph
ARAHEENShe stared at Kohina, wide-eyed, unable to summon an answer at once. First, the Shining Keeper had offered up her life so they might have even the slightest chance of saving the world from utter ruin. And now, if Yonah was to be brought down, Kohina had to die as well.A part of her wished to dismiss it as some cruel jest, absurd even in the midst of war against the beasts. But this was Kohina. The seer would never speak of such things lightly, least of all now, when they were losing, and Gildeon was in grave danger.Araheen parted her lips to ask another question, but Kohina cut her off before the words could leave her.“You swore never to ask questions, Araheen.”“But what you’re asking of me...” The sentence broke apart in her throat.Above them, another pained roar tore from Gildeon. One of his wings was badly ripped, and his spiritual wings were bearing most of the burden of keeping
ARAHEENShe watched Gildeon shift into his ultimate True Form. She had once believed nothing could surpass the majesty of his full dragon form.This was way beyond that.What rose into the ravaged sky now was not merely a dragon, but a coronation made flesh.His body had grown broader, longer, more sovereign in every line. The black of his scales remained, but now it was overtaken by more gold—rich, molten, radiant gold that streamed over him in commanding patterns, sheathing his throat, his chest, the curve of his ribs, and the heavy arches of his limbs. He looked to be wearing a gilded armor blessed by the divine light.Fire flowed along the ridges of his spine like living silk, pouring from one spiked crest to the next in bright rivers. His eyes, twin orbs of black and gold, became deeper and blazing all at once, like eclipsed suns lit from within.His wings alone could have undone her breath. The first pair was his
GILDEONThe end of the world had begun by the time he and Araheen stepped out of the Shining Keeper’s domain.Shamibar met them in ruin.Breaches hung open across the land like fresh wounds in the world, and beasts kept pouring out of them in numbers too great to count. There was no rhythm to it. No sign of slowing. Just a steady flood of teeth, claws, hide, and hunger. Sylphs and salamanders had been forced to stop tearing at each other long enough to fight the things trying to swallow them all.The air reeked of carrion, spoiled flesh, and old magic ripped wide open. Even for his kind—who had been raised amid the stinks of the ancient beasts—it was enough to make the gut tighten. All around them rolled the sounds of the creatures: deep, ancient bellows, wet snarls, bone-thin shrieks, jaws clacking like stones in a grave. The noise crawled beneath the skin and settled in the blood.Araheen’s grip tightened
NARRATOR’S POVThe wound in the fabric of the world pulsed at the center of the crater, a black tear that throbbed like something alive. Around it, the earth had caved in, forming a wide basin of broken stone and loose dirt. Dense forest ringed the crater on all sides, dark and still, its trees packed so tightly they looked like a wall.The elder witches who had tried to seal the breach lay scattered across the ground where they had fallen. Their mouths hung open. Their bodies were shriveled and dry, skin pulled tight over bone. Their eye sockets were empty. Their limbs had stiffened into bent, twisted angles.Yonah sat at the crater’s edge, cross-legged, his back straight, his eyes closed, his white hair shifting in the wind. He was deep in a trance, waiting.Then the cold reached him.It started in his core, frosting upward into his chest until his whole body went numb. Fine grains of ice seemed to gather over his ski
GILDEONHis mind raged with questions. Kana wasn’t special—just a pure human. But what truly gnawed at him was Zylas’s father. He had to be a higher mortal. A salamander.Gildeon couldn’t begin to wrap his thoughts around the idea of a salamander coming down to Earthland and mating with a human. Th
ARAHShe was still reeling. The winged beast towering before her—the one Gildeon had called out to—was Zylas. Her mind flashed back to their conversation in the kitchen, his cryptic mention of flying. Now it made sense, and yet, it didn’t.This creature definitely didn’t belong to Earthland. What kind
ARAHShe was standing on a farm. The morning air was sharp and cool, carrying the smell of damp earth and manure. In the distance, a herd of cows grazed lazily, tearing into the grass, their low, rumbling moos punctuating the quiet.A man stood a few yards away, worki
GILDEONHe trailed behind the two as they approached the massive tree, his gaze fixed on Tree Man. Perhaps lingering in this memory would reveal what kind of being this creature truly was.The tree’s gaping hollow was enormous, easily allowing Tree Man’s towering frame to pass through. Inside, the







