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—just as he was starting to think that the worst was over—

—the entire lower half of the sphere bentupward, as though some enormous fist were attempting to punch through it from underneath.

Alaric and Talasyn scrambled to fight off this new attack. Despite failing to regain its former shape, the barrier held fast against the blows that pummeled it. But—

“I—don’t—like—this.” Talasyn was wheezing, choking out her words. “It feels … the harder we push, the more it pushes back—like—”

“—like it’s sentient,” Alaric finished for her. “Like it’s fighting us.”

Ishan checked in with them. Although her voice was nighinaudible over the shriek and hum of magic, it was apparent that she was winded from the task of controlling the amplifiers’ aether cores. “Your Majesties. I know you can’t exactly respond right now, but something isoff. The dragons are restless. And there are—noises. From inside the volcano.”

Of course there are noises,Alaric thought.The Voidfell is moving through the earth.

Now that he knew to listen for it, however, hecouldhear something. Beyond the discordant notes of Lightweave and Shadowgate and Voidfell bleeding in from aetherspace, beyond the rumbling of the ground and the faint cries of the dragons, there was something else. A combination of breathing and snuffling, like a snake slithering over loose rock. He could tell from the look on Talasyn’s face that she heard it, too.

How loud it must be if they could distinguish it from within the sphere, from amidst the maelstrom.

Suddenly, the Void Sever deactivated, its waves retreating into the crater. From afar it must have looked as though the volcano sharply sucked in its violet-plumed breath. Tendrils of amethyst death crawled back into the dark bowels of the earth from where they’d sprung. Alaric and Talasyn banished the sphere and collapsed onto the yacht’s deck. Right on cue the cold swept through him, and he reached for her in desperate exhaustion, pressing his forehead to hers.

She cradled his face in her overheated palms. The aftereffects of their combined magic receded slowly. Her fingers curled carefully, so carefully, over the metal mask and his skin, steering clear of where he’d been hit by the Voidfell. And that was how he knew that something was wrong. Even before she gasped out, “Alaric. Your face—gods—”

His heart dropped. It was instinct, too, how he made to twist away from her, but she held him in place, kissing thebridge of his nose, and then pressing her lips to the carved wolf’s snarl of his mask. A balm, a blessing. Grace.

“I’m all right,” he mumbled. It was true; the stinging was gone, leaving behind only a dull ache. “It’s nothing …”

He trailed off as his gaze darted to her right arm.

The blisters had disappeared, smoothed away by her body’s magical tolerance. But the pattern of her veins remained etched in bright scarlet, from her wrist to the inside of her elbow.

He couldn’t even touch her arm in order to get a closer look. He was too afraid that the clawed points of his gauntlets would hurt her.

The world came flooding back to his consciousness, a rush of volcanic rock and humid air, and it was—

—still dark. Save for the light of the stars and the fire lamps of the ships.

The dragons had gone eerily silent.

“It’s too soon.” Talasyn crawled over to the aetherwave transceiver, checking the yacht’s timepiece. “Daya Vaikar,” she said, “there’s still thirty minutes of eclipse left, why did the Void Sever—”

“I don’t know,” said Ishan. Her tone was hushed. Mystified.

“Maybe we scared it off,” Alaric said with a grunt, which earned him a pointed glare from his wife. He didn’t care, though. He never wanted to move again.

But when the rumbling began anew and Talasyn scrambled to her feet, so did he. They peered down into the crater, and Alaric saw with the eyes of the Shadowforged the open mouth and the rows of gargantuan teeth barreling toward them.

He dove for the yacht’s controls, firing up its Squallfast hearts, yanking on the steering wheel.

“What is it?” Talasyn demanded, clinging to the guardrail.

He didn’t bother to respond. She’d find out soon enough. He barked orders over the aetherwave, orders for Ishan and her Enchanters to get away. He pushed the yacht into a steep ascent, and behind him Talasyn swore loudly as the fire lamps on the bow illuminated what had risen from the belly of Aktamasok.

Their little ship cleared the crater, the fanged mouth chasing after it. The fanged mouth first, then the rest of the long, tapered snout.

Then the ridged brow, the curving horns, the violet reptilian eyes.

All of it unfolded from within the chasm on a white-scaled neck almost as broad as Lir’s straits. The moons were gone and the stars spiraled on, and Bakun the World-Eater, the first dragon, vast and roaring and as old as time, raised its head over the volcanic summit, unhinging its jaws wide in a guttural scream of rage and grief that echoed through the very foundations of earth and sky.

CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE