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The reaper spoke again, words not known to any race or kingdom of the midrealms. An ancient tongue from beyond the Veil, its tone low and full of malice.

Then, the darkness lashed out.

One moment, Wilder could see the creature clear as day in the ruins. The next, it was pitch black all around him.

His first thought was of Thea.

Gods, where was she? If it got its talons in her again, he had no Aveum springwater left to save her. Blindly, he reached for her, but his hands only met air, air that shifted in the wake of the power lashing all around him.

A scream caught in his throat as he fell through the darkness.

He landed in Islaton, by the monument to the Furies in Naarva, and he watched in horror as his past, as Malik’s and Talemir’s past unfolded before him —

Wilder himself was duelling a wraith on the outskirts of the stone circle, the damn creature meeting his blows with strikes of onyx power, nearly sending him sprawling backward. He ignored the panic seizing his chest, ignored the internal scream that he needed to rejoin the unit. If he could kill this fucking monster, perhaps shred its wings for good measure, it was one less the others would have to contend with amid the fray. Somewhere in the near distance, Malik and Talemir were fighting side by side, the most formidable of them all: the Shieldbreaker and the Prince of Hearts.

‘Glory in death, immortality in legend,’Malik had said to Wilder before launching himself into the chaos with a manic grin. Those same words were carved into Malik’s dagger, were tattooed down Wilder’s spine: a vow and motto the brothers had claimed for themselves long ago.

The clang of steel rang out across the circle of white stones, the shouts of his fellow warriors too. The acrid scent of burnt hair tangled with the metallic tang of blood. All around their forces, wraiths shrieked and carved through their Guardian and Warsword brothers, breaking them apart with talons and shadows.

Wilder deflected a slash of already bloodied talons with his great sword, and carved a slice through the wraith’s abdomen, the creature screaming and flapping its wings in fury.

‘Fuck!’ Sharp plain sliced across Wilder’s neck and shoulder. The fucking thing had managed to get a blow in.

Ignoring the warm blood soaking through his undershirt and shitty armour, Wilder pushed the wraith back —

Someone yelled in the near distance.

Not someone.

Malik.

Wilder whirled around, already charging towards the sound, only to see his brother being lifted bodily from the ground. A giant creature, perhaps ten feet tall, swept Malik into the air as though he were a rag doll, not an enormous man in his own right.

‘Mal —’

But his brother’s name died on his lips as Wilder watched in horror. His boots still pounded the earth beneath him, but that brutal sinking in his chest told him he wouldn’t make it. He knew he wouldn’t make it —

Time unfolded slowly as Malik’s huge frame was dwarfed by the leathery creature, as it lifted him unthinkably high into the air and slammed him down into the rocks.

Face first.

A sickening crack sounded upon impact.

Over and over again.

A strangled scream escaped Wilder. There was still so much distance between him and Mal.

His brother’s body went limp in the monster’s clutches.

His face, an unrecognisable bloody pulp.

Wilder’s knees buckled, just as another familiar voice broke through the turmoil. Gasping for air, suddenly frozen in shock, Wilder turned to it.

Talemir.

Wilder couldn’t breathe, not as he saw Talemir’s legs kicking out underneath him, flailing beneath the death grip of a wraith – no, not a wraith; not like the others.

This thing was different. It had horns atop its grotesque head, it was bigger —