The skeletal dragon surged through the black tunnels of the Bone Warren like a nightmare given flesh.
Kael stood braced atop the hanging war-chariot lashed beneath the beast's ribs, dark hair whipping wild in the corpse-cold wind as the dragon thundered after a retreating squad of skeletal halberdiers. The undead soldiers turned too late.
The dragon crashed into them.
Bone shards exploded through the tunnel.
One halberdier vanished beneath the dragon's hooked claws. Another was bitten clean in half. The rest broke apart under sweeping tail-strikes that smashed them against the tunnel walls hard enough to crack stone.
Kael barked a laugh.
Gods, it felt good.
After everything in this damned pit, he was finally the monster.
The dragon roared again, the sound shaking dust from the ceiling. Ahead, crimson light spilled through a colossal archway.
The blood-pit hall.
Kael's grin vanished.
The skeletal dragon burst through the entrance—
—and Kael saw Lyra Farrow flying through the air.
The sight hit him like a hammer.
Her body spun weightlessly across the enormous chamber, dark hair scattering behind her. She struck a pillar once on the way down and bounced away limply, all strength gone from her body.
"Shreve!"
Terror punched through him.
The dragon reacted to his panic before he even gave the order. It lunged forward through the chamber with terrifying speed, skeletal wings beating once hard enough to unleash a storm of foul wind.
Kael threw himself over the front of the chariot.
Lyra was falling.
Too fast.
Too far.
He reached anyway.
At the final instant, his fingers caught her waist.
Momentum nearly dragged him from the chariot entirely. Pain ripped through his shoulder as he hauled her against his chest and crashed back into the bone frame.
"Shreve! Shreve Lyra!"
No response.
Her body lay soft and boneless in his arms.
Blood leaked slowly from the corner of her mouth.
Kael's heart lurched. He shoved trembling fingers against her abdomen and pushed Vitae carefully into her Crucible, feeding warmth into her battered Channels.
"Come on…" he muttered hoarsely. "Come on, don't die on me…"
The skeletal dragon floated above the blood pools with a low, threatening growl.
Kael looked up.
Something enormous clung upside down to the curved stone ceiling above the chamber.
At first glance it resembled a gigantic skeleton.
Then it moved.
Massive stone limbs unfolded from the ceiling with grinding cracks. Hollow eye sockets locked onto Kael with murderous hatred.
"You bastard…" Kael hissed.
Rage boiled through him.
"You hit her? You actually hit her?"
The creature growled low in its throat.
The skeletal dragon answered with a deafening roar, lifting its skull high in challenge.
Neither monster backed down.
Kael kept one arm wrapped around Lyra while continuing to feed her Vitae. He could feel how damaged her insides were. Her breathing was shallow. Her Channels felt chaotic and torn apart.
He forced himself not to panic.
The two creatures stared each other down for several breaths.
Then the ceiling monster lost patience.
It dropped.
The impact nearly shattered the hall.
Stone cracked outward beneath its feet in a violent ring. The entire blood-pit chamber shook so hard Kael nearly lost balance.
Now he saw it clearly.
The thing stood nearly fifty feet tall. Its body was blue-gray stone shaped into a crude skeletal form. Jagged rock bulged from every inch of its frame like stacked boulders crudely hammered together.
Kael blinked.
"With fire on it…" he muttered. "That almost looks like my Unbreakable Marshal…"
The creature took a step forward.
Another.
Slow.
Heavy.
Every movement carried crushing pressure like a mountain walking.
Then Kael noticed the symbol carved into its chest.
A Ward-script.
Ancient.
Primitive.
Its lines were faded but unmistakable.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"Nine-Earth pattern…"
Recognition flashed through him.
Earth-aligned restriction craft. Defensive reinforcement. Weight manipulation.
His expression darkened.
"So you're an earth monster."
He guessed right.
The creature was no ordinary spirit beast.
Long before Lord Ossian corrupted it with Fell rites, it had already been something ancient—a natural stone sovereign born from countless ages beneath heaven and earth. Sunlight. Moonlight. Deep-earth essence. It had devoured them all across millennia before awakening into sentience.
Then Ossian had twisted it.
Now it guarded the mechanism drawing power from the Dread Mire itself.
The stone monster kept advancing.
Kael glanced at Lyra.
Still unconscious.
No choice.
He slowly withdrew his hand from her abdomen and looked up at the skeletal dragon.
"All right," he growled. "Tear this ugly bastard apart."
The dragon moved instantly.
It dove from the air like a black flood.
Hooked claws slashed downward. Before they even connected, the sheer force of the strike carved deep trenches across the stone monster's chest and abdomen.
Stone fragments exploded outward.
The monster merely staggered once.
Then it charged.
Kael's eyes widened.
"Strong defense…"
He remembered Auryn Gale's golden barrier—the one generated by the Auric Manacle. The skeletal dragon had ripped through that defense almost casually.
But this thing?
It barely cared.
A heartbeat later, the two giants collided.
The sound was apocalyptic.
The shockwave blasted through the hall hard enough to make the blood pools ripple violently. Wind screamed through the chamber as claw met stone fist again and again.
Kael nearly vomited from the impacts.
The war-chariot swung wildly beneath the dragon. He wrapped one arm around Lyra protectively while clutching the bone railing with the other.
Another collision.
His ribs screamed.
Lyra moaned weakly in his arms.
"Easy, easy…"
In the middle of the chaos, Kael ripped open the Wardian Satchel and pulled out two healing preparations from the Runeward Chapter reserves. He forced them between Lyra's lips, rubbing her throat gently until she swallowed.
The battle worsened by the second.
Cracks spread through several bones along the dragon's ribs.
But the stone monster looked even worse.
Deep gouges scarred its body. Entire chunks of rock had been ripped away.
Still, neither slowed down.
If anything, both became more savage.
Kael stared in disbelief.
The skeletal dragon had once been a true Deepwater Dragon—a sacred anti-corruption creature left behind in ages past as a seal against evil. Even after destruction and reconstruction through Ossian's dark rites, it should still have possessed terrifying power.
Yet this stone creature was matching it head-on.
What the hell was this thing?
Earth-aligned monsters were famous for brute force and impossible defense, but even so—
This was a dragon.
Not just any dragon.
A corrupted fusion of sacred and demonic power.
Kael had spent months building the Unbreakable Marshal, pouring endless effort into the construct, and he knew with absolute certainty that his creation would have been smashed apart within moments by this skeletal dragon.
But the stone creature endured.
Then the Ward-script on its chest suddenly ignited.
Kael's expression changed.
A terrifying gravitational force exploded outward.
The skeletal dragon jerked violently.
Everything was dragged toward the monster.
"Shit!"
Kael grabbed the railing as the entire war-chariot hurtled forward uncontrollably. Lyra nearly slipped from his arms.
The Earth's Binding.
The realization slammed into him instantly.
He had seen Lyra use a restriction like this before.
The stone monster spread both colossal arms wide.
Then it clamped them shut around the skeletal dragon.
The crunch of breaking bone echoed through the hall.
Kael went pale.
The dragon's ribcage cracked inward beneath the pressure. Only the dangling position of the war-chariot saved Kael and Lyra from being crushed outright beneath the monster's embrace.
Kael's face twisted in agony.
"No… no no no…"
He had just gotten this treasure.
His dragon.
His mount.
His beautiful terrifying undead monster.
Was it seriously going to die already?
Then the skeletal dragon lifted its skull.
Its jaws opened.
A torrent of thick crimson breath exploded onto the stone monster's arms.
The effect was immediate.
The stone began melting.
Not from heat.
Corrosion.
The rock turned sickly pink where the breath touched it. Chunks softened instantly.
The dragon lunged forward and bit down.
CRUNCH.
Huge pieces of softened stone tore free between its fangs.
Kael froze.
Then his eyes lit up.
"Oh, you beautiful monster…"
The dragon kept going.
Breath.
Corrode.
Bite.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Within seconds both of the stone creature's arms looked mangled and rotten, enormous chunks missing everywhere.
Kael barked a wild laugh.
"So that's your trick! Gods damn, I almost underestimated you!"
Excitement flooded him.
"That's it! Melt the bastard! Bite him apart!"
The stone monster roared furiously.
The glowing Ward-script blazed brighter.
Its arms tightened again with terrifying force.
More cracks spread across the dragon's bones.
But the skeletal dragon ignored the damage completely.
It kept biting.
Kept spraying corrosive breath.
Neither creature retreated.
It became a pure death struggle.
Kael's mind raced.
Need to help it.
Need to break the balance.
The war-chariot swung directly beneath the stone creature's chest.
And then Kael saw it.
The Ward-script.
Every time it flared, the monster's strength surged.
His eyes narrowed.
Weak point.
Without hesitation he gathered fire Vitae through his Channels. Heat exploded across his arm.
The Eight-Claw Flamescourge lashed outward.
The flaming whip cracked across the glowing symbol with explosive force.
BOOM.
The stone monster convulsed violently.
Its roar shook the hall.
Its crushing grip loosened for the briefest instant.
The skeletal dragon tore part of its body free.
Kael grinned savagely.
"There you are."
He attacked again.
And again.
The Eight-Claw Flamescourge became a storm of fire and dragon-scale steel. Every strike hammered directly into the Ward-script carved across the creature's chest.
Fragments exploded outward.
The symbol shattered piece by piece.
The stone monster could not defend itself. Its entire focus remained locked on restraining the skeletal dragon thrashing in its grip.
Then suddenly—
its body swayed.
Its arms loosened.
The skeletal dragon burst free completely.
The dragon spun through the air instantly, wrapping itself around the stone monster like a colossal serpent. Massive claws tore downward—
—and ripped one entire stone arm off.
The monster screamed.
This time the roar sounded weaker.
Its footing faltered.
"It's dying!" Kael shouted.
"Kill it!"
The skeletal dragon lunged at its face.
Its jaws punched straight through the creature's skull, tearing open a massive hole where its features should have been.
Then the claws came down again.
Half the creature's head exploded apart.
Everything changed after that.
The stone sovereign that had fought like a mountain moments earlier suddenly collapsed under the dragon's assault.
Claws tore through it.
Jaws shattered it.
The skeletal dragon descended into madness.
Even after victory, it kept attacking.
Again.
Again.
Again.
It ripped the ruined stone body apart piece by piece, scattering shattered rock across the chamber in a violent storm.
Kael watched grimly.
Ossian's corruption had twisted the dragon deeply.
There was cruelty in it now.
Savage hunger.
Then something black burst from the collapsing remains.
A sphere the size of a grapefruit shot into the air and fled across the chamber among the flying debris.
Kael's eyes flashed.
Spirit core.
Sylva had once explained it to him. Powerful elemental monsters often condensed their essence into a core after countless years of cultivation. If their bodies were destroyed, the core would attempt escape automatically.
And those cores were priceless.
Perfect for forging Ward-Treasures or crafting high-grade scripts.
Kael snapped the Eight-Claw Flamescourge outward.
The whip wrapped around the fleeing object.
He yanked it back.
The thing landed in his palm.
Warm.
Softly pulsing.
It looked like a sphere of black liquid trapped inside glass, dense with concentrated Aether.
Kael grinned despite himself.
"Worth it."
But the grin faded quickly.
He looked back down at Lyra.
She still had not awakened.
Her face was deathly pale now, almost colorless beneath the blood staining her lips.
And suddenly the enormous hall felt much colder than before.
Kael knelt beside Lyra in the shattered hanging war-chariot, one hand braced behind her shoulders while the other pressed gently against her lower abdomen. Warm Vitae flowed from his palm into her Crucible in slow pulses.
Nothing happened fast enough.
Her breathing had steadied a little after the collapse of the stone creature, but her face remained pale as frostbitten silk. Blood still stained the corner of her mouth. Too much blood.
His chest tightened.
"Damn it..." he muttered.
He pulled a handkerchief from inside his armor and carefully wiped the red from her lips. Even unconscious, she looked unbearable to look at. Too beautiful. Too fragile. Like some divine thing dragged through a battlefield and broken by mortal hands.
Kael had no idea what else to do.
He kept feeding Vitae into her body while panic gnawed quietly at the edges of his thoughts.
If Sylva were here, she would know.
The thought struck him so hard it almost hurt physically.
"Syl..." he whispered bitterly. "If Elder Soror Sylva was here, she'd fix this in a heartbeat..."
Then he thought of Isara.
Auryn.
All of them.
For one ugly moment the ache of missing them almost drowned everything else.
The Bone Warren suddenly felt very empty.
Very far from home.
After roughly half an incense stick, Kael's breathing started turning ragged. His own reserves were running thin after the slaughter underground. He finally withdrew his hand with reluctance.
Lyra's breathing was smoother now at least.
Not good.
But better.
Kael exhaled shakily and leaned back against the chariot's jagged bone railing.
Then his eyes drifted toward the Skeletal Dragon.
The enormous creature crouched nearby atop the cracked stone floor, wings folded against its colossal frame. Earlier, the stone sovereign had shattered whole sections of its ribs and spine. Kael had seen bones splintering apart during the fight.
Now those wounds were already knitting back together.
Hairline cracks faded visibly across the pale bones. The deepest fractures had shrunk to faint scars.
Kael blinked.
"Hell..." he murmured. "You really can heal that fast?"
Excitement sparked through him despite the exhaustion.
This thing was monstrous.
The more he saw, the more absurd it became.
A dragon that could regenerate. Fly. Tear apart siege monsters. Ignore Dread Aura. And obey him.
He stared at the beast in amazement.
"How many tricks are you hiding...?"
Before he could think further, a deep grinding boom echoed through the chamber overhead.
Kael looked up sharply.
The gigantic circular stone mechanism embedded in the ceiling was still slowly turning—but badly now. Jerking. Shuddering. Massive cracks had spread across its rune-covered surface.
The whole thing looked close to collapse.
Kael narrowed his eyes.
Earlier, Lyra had sabotaged most of the formation before being struck down. Now that the corruption feeding the mechanism had been disrupted, the entire structure was destabilizing.
And suddenly a vicious idea bloomed in his head.
Why stop halfway?
Why not finish the job completely?
His eyes gleamed.
"If this thing breaks..." he murmured, looking upward, "the Dread Mire water above should pour straight into the Warren..."
His grin widened slowly.
"Flood the whole damned nest."
Decision made.
He pointed upward.
"Destroy it."
The Skeletal Dragon moved instantly.
The giant beast surged upward with explosive force, dragging the hanging war-chariot behind it. Kael grabbed Lyra protectively as the dragon smashed into the mechanism.
Its hooked claws dug into stone.
Chunks exploded apart.
The enormous circular slab shattered like rotten bread beneath the dragon's talons.
Then came the sound.
A deep cracking roar rolled through the entire underground fortress.
Stone screamed.
The ceiling split.
Mud and sand cascaded downward in torrents.
Then water appeared.
At first only thin streams.
Then an entire lake came crashing through the broken ceiling.
The Dread Mire descended like the wrath of a god.
A deafening waterfall exploded into the chamber.
"Move!" Kael shouted.
But the dragon had already reacted.
It twisted violently through the collapsing cavern while millions of gallons of black floodwater thundered downward behind them.
The blood-pit hall vanished almost instantly beneath the torrent.
Water slammed through the tunnels in every direction like living beasts unleashed from hell itself.
The roar behind them became overwhelming.
Kael looked back once and nearly went white.
The flood was gaining.
"Faster! Faster!" he yelled. "Get us out of here!"
The dragon tore through the Bone Warren at terrifying speed.
Tunnel after tunnel collapsed behind them.
Walls burst apart beneath the pressure of the incoming flood. Skeleton soldiers vanished screaming beneath black water. Bone towers cracked. Entire corridors imploded.
Kael had expected destruction.
He had not expected this.
The whole underground kingdom was dying around him.
Even with preparation, the sheer force of the flood terrified him badly enough that his lips lost color.
If the dragon slowed even once—
They would drown with the rest.
Fortunately the beast did not fail him.
After one final furious burst through a collapsing tunnel mouth, the dragon erupted from the earth just as the Warren fully caved in behind them.
Cold night air slammed into Kael's face.
They shot upward into the sky.
Kael sucked in breath greedily while the Skeletal Dragon climbed higher above the Dread Mire.
Below them, the earth was collapsing inward in massive sections. Water burst continuously from enormous cracks in the marshland as the flooded Bone Warren imploded beneath the surface.
Kael stared down in disbelief.
He had actually done it.
Without the dragon, even destroying the mechanism would have meant death.
He would never have escaped the flood alive.
For a long while he simply sat there breathing hard, watching the devastation below.
Then suddenly his thoughts snapped elsewhere.
Mirekeep.
His head jerked toward the distant horizon.
"What's happening at Mirekeep right now...?"
His chest tightened again.
Was Isara safe?
Auryn?
The others?
The war was still happening.
Kael slowly turned to look at the massive dragon winding through the night sky ahead of him.
Thirty yards long at least.
A nightmare given flesh.
Then a grin spread across his face.
"With you around..." he said softly, "why the hell shouldn't I go back?"
The idea grew larger with every second.
He could actually help now.
Not hide.
Not run.
Help.
He could bring Lyra back to Sylva for treatment. He could smash undead armies apart with the dragon. He could shove this monster straight into Lord Ossian's forces and watch them panic.
Kael started laughing.
"Gods, I'd pay to see their faces when they realize their own dragon switched sides."
His grin widened further.
"Actually..." he added thoughtfully, "most of them don't have faces anymore."
He snorted.
"Or guts."
Then paused.
"So I guess they can't piss themselves either."
The image amused him enough that he nearly doubled over laughing.
But then another thought hit him like a thrown knife.
His laughter died instantly.
Phoenixspur.
Or rather—
One particular Elder-Uncle.
Kael's face twitched.
"If Sixth Elder-Uncle sees me..." he muttered darkly, "he'll drag me straight back to Phoenixspur and lock me in a cell for the next fifty years."
That possibility was horrifying enough to sober him completely.
He sat there frowning for several moments.
Then suddenly his eyes lit up.
"Wait."
A slow grin returned.
"If he can't recognize me..."
Kael immediately started rummaging through his Wardian Satchel.
The armor he currently wore was already scavenged from skeletal warriors, blackened and monstrous enough to hide most of his appearance. That part was fine.
But then he pulled out the thing he truly hated.
The Sevenfold Shroud.
The dark mask seemed almost alive in his hands.
Even now it made his skin crawl.
Kael hesitated.
Everything inside him screamed not to wear it again.
But finally he clenched his jaw and forced the mask onto his face.
The instant it settled over his skin, agony slammed through him.
His whole body convulsed violently.
It felt like lightning ripping through his nerves.
Countless strange sensations erupted inside him all at once—rage, exhilaration, irritation, hunger, cruelty, grief.
Too many emotions.
Too intense.
Kael nearly tore the mask back off immediately.
"Gods..." he hissed through clenched teeth.
His breathing turned uneven.
"This cursed thing..."
Even prepared for it, he still felt close to losing control.
The artifact was wrong.
Deeply wrong.
"Next time," he muttered harshly, "I don't care what happens. I'm not touching this thing again."
Then his gaze drifted accidentally toward Lyra.
And everything became worse.
She lay sprawled unconscious within the hanging chariot, silver-black hair slightly disheveled, long lashes trembling faintly against pale skin. Her robes had loosened during the escape, revealing the devastating curves beneath.
Her body looked soft boned. Vulnerable.
Helpless.
And her breasts—
Kael swallowed hard.
Even half-reclined awkwardly inside the chariot, they remained absurdly full and high, straining against silk dampened by blood and water alike.
His pulse began hammering instantly.
"How the hell..." he thought hazily, staring, "do they stay like that...?"
The mask's influence flooded through him harder.
Heat spread across his body.
His thoughts became sluggish and filthy.
Before he realized what he was doing, his hand had already started moving toward her.
Closer.
Closer.
His fingertips brushed silk.
Kael froze.
Then jerked backward like he had touched fire.
"What the hell is wrong with me?!"
He slapped the side of the mask hard enough to echo.
"This damned thing again!"
His breathing became ragged.
"The same thing happened with Sel—"
He cut himself off violently.
Kael forced his eyes away from Lyra and stared into empty darkness instead, breathing hard while he fought the surge of twisted urges crawling through his body.
For several long moments he did not dare look back toward her at all.
Eventually he regained enough control to think clearly again.
Barely.
Then another problem occurred to him.
The Eight-Claw Flamescourge.
Too recognizable.
If any Covenant elder saw that whip, his disguise would become meaningless instantly.
Kael cursed under his breath and reached into the Wardian Satchel again.
This time he pulled out the paired divine weapons looted from the Thunder General.
The Soul-Binding Chain.
The Soul-Strike Shield.
The moment he gripped them, he felt a savage satisfaction pulse through him. The weapons suited the current monstrous armor and demonic mask perfectly.
He coiled the Flamescourge back around his arm and armed himself fully.
Shield in left hand.
Chain in right.
At the same time, the sensations from the Sevenfold Shroud intensified further.
Excitement.
Violence.
Pain.
Madness.
Something inside him felt close to bursting apart.
Kael suddenly threw back his head and roared into the night.
"Listen up, you undead bastards!"
His voice thundered across the sky.
"The Little Saint-Lord is coming!"
Then the Skeletal Dragon banked sharply through the blood-red clouds and hurtled toward Mirekeep like an omen of catastrophe.
---
The battlefield below had become a vision from the end of the world.
Blood clouds boiled across the heavens, painting everything beneath them crimson.
Men.
Walls.
Steel.
Even the rain of ash drifting through the air looked red.
The fighting had only grown worse.
The Bone Legion attacked endlessly.
Wave after wave of undead hammered the walls of Mirekeep without pause while exhausted defenders struggled desperately to hold the line.
More than thirty percent of the Iron Maw Legion was already dead or crippled.
Rovan Ashford stood atop the battlements surrounded by smoke and corpses.
His golden winged scorpion construct had vanished long ago after driving back over a hundred winged skeletons, but the battle afterward had only intensified further.
Since then he had already burned through four more of the Ten Anomaly Wards stored inside his script pouch.
His Aether reserves were nearly empty.
His Vitae was worse.
Nearby, Auryn Gale had finally managed to destroy one of the Bone Towers using the Auric Manacle and her shield, but even she had been forced into meditation afterward to recover.
Yet despite their efforts, the battlefield continued collapsing around them.
Three Bone Towers still remained fully operational.
Two more, though damaged, still possessed combat capability.
The monstrous structures continued smashing apart sections of Mirekeep's walls while vomiting fresh undead directly onto the battlements.
The city was losing.
Everyone knew it now.
"Status of the Earthrend Arbalests?" Rovan asked.
A nearby officer answered immediately.
"Only three remain operational, my lord. Seven bolts left here. Other sectors report almost none remaining."
Rovan's jaw tightened.
"What did the western wall request earlier?"
"Commander Ulric is dead," the officer replied grimly. "More than half his men fell. Deputy Commander Vale requested reinforcements."
Rovan stayed silent for a moment.
"And the disturbance inside the city?"
"A group of undead broke through the western breach. They're slaughtering civilians in the market district. General Kess moved reserve troops to contain them."
Rovan said nothing after that.
His face remained calm.
But inwardly his heart kept sinking lower.
Those reports were terrible.
Yet not the worst problem.
Not even close.
The truly horrifying issue was the gradual weakening of the Ward-scripts protecting the soldiers.
Rovan had already noticed the signs.
Men trembling uncontrollably.
Eyes glazing with fear.
Small groups abandoning positions despite officers threatening them at swordpoint.
The Dread Aura pouring from the Bone Towers was overwhelming ordinary humans now that the wards were failing.
Rovan understood exactly what would happen once the protections vanished completely.
The soldiers would not merely flee.
Many would collapse where they stood, too spiritually crushed to even move.
And the battle showed no sign whatsoever of ending soon.
Rovan slowly looked across the burning battlefield.
Despair pressed heavily against his chest.
"Is Mirekeep truly going to fall..." he wondered.
Then suddenly a horrific cry echoed across the battlefield.
Rovan's head snapped up.
A new undead formation was advancing.
And unlike the mindless waves before, this one moved with terrifying discipline.
Rovan narrowed his eyes.
Then his pupils contracted sharply.
Hundreds of massive two-headed armored skeleton swordsmen marched at the front.
Over a thousand halberd-bearing undead guarded the flanks.
At the center moved nearly a hundred skeletal sorcerers carrying ritual implements glowing with corpse-light.
Behind them came endless ranks of axe-wielding guards.
The remaining Bone Towers were shifting too—converging toward the largest breach in the wall.
The blood clouds above churned violently.
The killing blow had arrived.
Rovan touched the nearly empty script pouch at his waist.
Only four anomaly wards remained.
That was all.
He forced himself to stand straighter anyway.
A nearby officer stepped forward quietly.
"Should we deploy the remaining reserve companies from inside the city—"
"No."
Rovan cut him off immediately.
Simple.
Absolute.
If the reserves left the city center now, the civilians inside would die without protection.
At that moment Auryn Gale rose from meditation nearby.
The golden-haired soror stepped to the edge of the battlements, robes fluttering softly in the hot crimson wind. Loose strands of hair drifted across her calm face.
She looked exhausted.
But utterly resolute.
Rovan glanced toward her and suddenly felt a strange surge of emotion inside his chest.
Not fear.
Not despair.
Resolve.
If she could still stand—
Then so could he.
The officers and soldiers behind him seemed to feel it too.
One by one they straightened.
Weapons tightened in bloodied hands.
Eyes hardened.
The defenders of Mirekeep stood waiting atop the broken walls while the Bone Legion advanced through the red storm toward them.