The courtyard was breaking apart under the weight of the sorcerer’s shadows. Creatures clawed out of the ground, their eyes burning like embers. The Ash Queen’s fire blazed, Elias’s wolf roared, and I clung to the bond holding me together, still raw from the fight to reclaim myself.
But even with the three of us standing shoulder to shoulder, I could feel it—this wasn’t a battle we could win here.
The Ash Queen must have felt it too. Her crown flickered dimly, her dark eyes sharp. She turned toward us, shouting over the roar of the shadows. “We cannot fight him on the surface. His power runs too deep here.”
Elias slashed through a lunging beast, sending it crumpling to the broken stone. “Then where?” he growled.
“The heart of the realm.” She said, her voice like steel. “The source of a
