The two liches began to move through the battlefield.

  Velcryn paused beside a young Ash-Reaver who was struggling against the glacial-hued chains, tears of fear freezing on his cheeks. The lich reached out and placed a skeletal finger on the demon's helm.

  The metal and the skull beneath it flash-froze, then cracked like cheap glass. Velcryn didn't even look down as the body crumpled. He moved on.

  Myrrakhael moved through a cluster of armored demons. He grabbed a struggling warrior by the throat, lifting the four-hundred-pound demon with one hand. With the other, he punched through the breastplate as if it were wet paper, ripping the heart out.

  He squeezed. Black blood rained down over the lich's face, sizzling against his green robes. Myrrakhael opened his mouth, catching the drops, savoring the copper taste.

  "Not him," Myrrakhael gurgled, tossing the corpse aside. "Too... demonic."

  They turned, their empty sockets scanning the chaos. Then, they saw Caldreth. Standing in the shadow of a canyon wall, flanked by Krim and the stiff undead.

  The liches turned in unison.

  They floated toward Caldreth, moving without sound. As they drew closer, the air between them warred for supremacy. Velcryn's aura of absolute zero clashed with Myrrakhael's aura of necrotic green fire. The atmosphere screamed as it was frozen and burned, creating a swirling vortex of mist and heat around them.

  They stopped mere feet before Caldreth, making his skin crawl.

  "And who might you be?" Velcryn whispered, the frost on his jaw cracking. "You've been causing quite the ruckus."

  "He is small," Myrrakhael rasped, floating closer. The necrotic fire wreathing him flared, casting long shadows against the canyon wall. "Are you certain this is the source? He looks like a gutter-born whelp."

  Velcryn didn't answer. He moved closer and leaned in, his hollow eye sockets mere inches from Caldreth's face. He inhaled, a rattling sound like dry leaves skittering on stone.

  Myrrakhael tilted his head at an unnatural angle. "Something is off," the lich muttered. "There is no scent. I am staring at him, yet it is like staring into a void. A blank spot in the world."

  He began to float in a slow, predatory circle around Caldreth, his skeletal fingers twitching with curiosity.

  "Something is hiding his signature. Something ancient is masking the boy's very presence." Myrrakhael hissed.

  He drifted behind Caldreth, his emerald fire dimming as he focused. Then, he stopped. His jawbone creaked as it dropped, a slow, rattling hinge of disbelief.

  "Ah," Myrrakhael breathed, a sound of giddy, terrified delight. "Found you."

  He pointed a jagged finger at Caldreth's back pocket, where the worn leather binding of the Tome peeked out. Even tucked away, it didn't just feel like a book; it felt like a concentrated heartbeat of pure, unadulterated power.

  "Ravik was right about the boy, but he missed the prize!" Myrrakhael cackled, clutching his sides as if the joke were too much to bear. "How amusing! A Sangrathi with a grimoire in his pocket! Tucked away like a commoner's ledger! Oh, Velcryn, look at it! It isn't just an artifact; it's vivid. I have never seen such a binding."

  Myrrakhael reached out, his hand trembling with greed. "This grimoire looks unfamiliar. Who created you, little monster?"

  "Do not touch it," Velcryn warned from where he hovered, his voice sharp and cold. "Grimoires are not trinkets, Myrrakhael."

  "I just want a peek," the lich giggled, his obsession overriding his caution.

  He ignored the warning. He bent at the waist, reaching out with just his index finger and thumb, intending to pinch the leather and slide it free.

  The moment his bone fingertip grazed the surface, the air bled.

  An angry wave of crimson aura exploded from the pocket, a physical shockwave that cracked the canyon floor. A bolt of red lightning, thick as a man's arm, arched out and snapped into Myrrakhael's hand with the deafening sound of a cracking whip.

  "GAH!"

  Myrrakhael recoiled, sent spiraling back as if he'd been hit by a siege engine. He clutched his smoking hand; the bone was charred black, the necrotic fire nearly extinguished by the raw power.

  "It bites?" Myrrakhael shrieked, his voice rising to a glass-shattering pitch. "You dare bite me?"

  Blind fury overtook him. The lich raised his good hand, wreathed in a chaotic inferno of green flame, and swung a vicious backhand aimed at Caldreth's skull.

  The blow stopped inches from Caldreth's head.

  Velcryn had moved in a flash, leaving only a swirling cloud of dust. He placed himself between Caldreth and the blow, his skeletal hand gripping Myrrakhael's wrist with the force of a tectonic plate.

  "Enough," Velcryn said. His voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of a glacier.

  "It struck me!" Myrrakhael hissed.

  "And you would shatter the vessel in a temper tantrum?" Velcryn shoved Myrrakhael back. "You know better than that. The boy remains unharmed, you fool."

  Velcryn shoved the fiery lich away with a burst of frosty wind. Myrrakhael stumbled back in the air, rubbing his wrist, the green flames around him dimming to a sullen, smoldering hue. He floated off to the side, muttering curses under his breath like a petulant child denied a sweet.

  Velcryn smoothed his tattered robes, the ice crystals reforming where the fire had touched them. He turned his sapphire gaze back to Caldreth, ignoring his partner's tantrum.

  "And yes," Velcryn stated, his voice devoid of doubt. "I am certain this is the source."

  He leaned in closer, the air temperature dropping around Caldreth.

  "The blood will not lie," Velcryn said. He extended a hand, hovering a long, jagged claw inches from Caldreth's face. "Perhaps a demonstration is in order."

  Velcryn pointed a skeletal finger toward the center of a demon formation, his empty sockets fixing on an injured Sandsworn. "Myrrakhael, bring the wind-weaver. She is damaged. She is pliable."

  Myrrakhael shed his feigned misery with jarring speed, his expression snapping to manic glee. He crashed into a cluster of bound demons, his skeletal hand clamping onto one of Vora's elegant, spiraling horns. She cried out as he yanked her backward, dragging her across the abrasive canyon sand like a sack of grain before lifting her without effort and slamming her to her knees in front of Caldreth.

  Vora looked up, her golden eyes swimming with pain and terror, her chest still heaving from the earlier crash.

  Velcryn's presence pressed down on the canyon floor. He looked down at Vora, who was trembling, before nodding to Myrrakhael. "You may begin."

  "With pleasure," Myrrakhael turned away from Vora. Green necrotic fire erupted around his hands as he reached out, chains lashing from his palms to ensnare a large group of demons.

  "From death... life is given..." Myrrakhael chanted, his voice like mud boiling in a bog.

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  The lich pulled, forcing the demons to scream in unison. A horrific tearing sound ripped through the canyon as the life force left their bodies. Visible streams of viridian vitality flowed from their eyes and mouths, pooling in the air over Myrrakhael's head into a swirling, pulsating sphere of concentrated energy. The husks of the drained demons collapsed into dust.

  As the energy gathered, Velcryn began his own work.

  He raised his skeletal hands, his fingers twitching like the legs of a spider spinning a web. He reached toward the sphere and pulled. Long, viscous strands of neon-green light unspooled from the mass, obeying his will.

  Velcryn began to weave upon the air. Binding glyphs fueled by the stolen life force encircled Vora. They spun with meaning, locking into place to form a cage of light.

  Thin tendrils of energy lashed out from the floating sigils, wrapping around Vora's limbs and torso like glowing wire, holding her still.

  Velcryn stepped through the floating glyphs, stopping right in front of Caldreth. He reached out with a single, razor-sharp talon.

  "Do not struggle," the lich whispered, intimate and cold. "It is pointless."

  He traced a long, deep line across Caldreth's face, from temple to jaw.

  Hot blood welled up, running down Caldreth's cheek. Velcryn cupped his skeletal hand beneath the wound, catching the heavy flow, letting it pool in his palm like dark water.

  "Such waste," Velcryn murmured, staring at the red liquid. "To keep this locked inside a cage of skin."

  He turned to Vora, stepping inside the cage of light. He forced her jaw open with his free hand and tilted his other palm, pouring Caldreth's blood into her throat.

  "Drink," Velcryn commanded. "And become."

  The blood slid down her throat.

  Vora gagged, her body arching in a violent spasm of rejection. She tried to cough it up, but the lich clamped his hand over her mouth and nose.

  She had no choice but to swallow. The reaction was instant.

  Vora's eyes bulged. A strangled sound tore from her throat, a scream that was drowned out by the sudden, wet sizzle of her insides boiling. The floating glyphs around her flared white-hot, dumping their energy into her body to fuel a mutation.

  Ragith-kar screamed. "Vora! Fight it!"

  But she couldn't fight. The wind that always danced around her shrieked and died. It was cut off as if a door had been slammed shut.

  Ragith-kar felt that silence in his bones. Her connection to the skies of the Wastes was gone.

  Then, the unmaking began.

  Vora fell forward, vomiting a stream of black fluid. Her burnished golden skin began to gray, then darken to a slick, bruised olive.

  The sound of her spine lengthening echoed off the canyon walls like a gunshot.

  Thra-uk roared, thrashing against his chains until they bit through his armor into his skin. "Stop! You are breaking her!"

  "I am improving her," Velcryn corrected, his gaze boring into his new creation.

  As her skin darkened with the infection, the energy bindings hissed and dissolved, sinking into her flesh and giving way to black veins racing beneath her skin.

  Vora's fingers dug into the stone. Her fingernails split down the center, shedding the old layers to reveal curved talons.

  She looked up, her face a mask of absolute agony. Her jaw unhinged with a wet pop, allowing rows of needle-sharp fangs to descend from her gums, pushing the old teeth out as they clattered onto the stone.

  But the worst was the horn.

  Vora screamed, a sound that shredded her vocal cords, as the skin in the center of her forehead began to bulge. It turned translucent, stretched to the breaking point.

  With a sickening tear of wet flesh, a crystalline growth erupted from her skull. A jagged spike of neon-green glass, pulsing with a psychic resonance.

  Steam rose from her body, smelling of copper and ozone. For a moment, she lay still. Her shoulders twitched, and she rose. The movement was fluid, as if her joints had been rearranged.

  She stood taller than before. The golden grace of the Sandsworn was gone, replaced by the hunched, predatory tension of a monster.

  She turned to look at Caldreth.

  Her eyes were gone. The golden irises had dissolved, swallowed by a flat, luminescent viridian glow. There was no pupil. Only a flat, hungry void.

  She was still Vora, but the person who had woven the wind was dead. Only the meat remained.

  "Not perfect," Velcryn whispered, leaning in to inspect the gore dripping from her new horn. "But it will suffice."

  He reached out with a single skeletal finger and flicked the crystalline spike.

  Ting.

  The sound carried a resonance that shivered through the air like a struck tuning fork. A visible ripple of neon-green distortion pulsed outward from the horn, expanding across the canyon floor.

  It washed over the battlefield.

  Every infected creature in the canyon snapped to attention. They turned their heads in unison, hundreds of milky, dead eyes locking onto Vora.

  They lowered their heads, a silent, shivering bow to the new signal broadcasting in their minds.

  Velcryn smiled, a dry cracking sound.

  "See?" he murmured to Ragith-kar, whose face was twisted in horror. "They know their new queen."

  The silence that followed was heavy with a horrific understanding. The connection was undeniable. Every demon watching had seen the ritual. They had seen the blood leave Caldreth and enter Vora's throat.

  "You..." Ragith-kar whispered, his voice wrought with betrayal. "Your blood. It is the source."

  "I knew it," Vorzan snarled, ceasing his struggle against the bonds. He glared at Caldreth with cold vindication. "I told you he was poison."

  To the left, Krim stood frozen. The necromancer was staring at Caldreth, his lips moving silently as he mouthed: The source...

  Caldreth watched them, his breath hitching in his chest. The horror of it washed over him. My blood, he thought. My blood created these monsters.

  He struggled. He thrashed against the chains, desperate to pull away.

  "He resists," Myrrakhael noted, the green fire around him flaring. "Tighten the bind."

  The chains around Caldreth constricted. The pressure on his arms became crushing, pinning them to his ribs. His right hand, still jammed deep in his pocket, was squeezed by the force. The pressure mounted, forcing his fingers into a fist tighter than flesh and bone could withstand.

  The Veinstone he was gripping shattered.

  A cloud of crimson mist detonated inward. The power flooded his veins like liquid magma, burning him from the inside out. It was a raw, chaotic injection of power. His open wound answered like a beacon while the Tome shuddered at his hip, trying to smother his true scent.

  It failed.

  His mind, desperate to ground itself against the surge, latched onto the only thing solid enough to hold the weight: the past.

  At Ragith-kar's waist, the glass flask of Iron-wine screamed. It released a piercing, resonant harmonic note that tore through the canyon's silence, loud as a warning bell.

  The glass couldn't hold the frequency, shattering from the sheer violence of the sound.

  "The wine!" Ragith-kar screamed, eyes wide with horror. "It sings! He is Sangrathi!"

  Thra-uk stared at the unconscious figure. The realization hit him like a physical blow.

  "The trail we were sent for..." Thra-uk whispered, his voice trembling with a rising fury. "It was you!"

  He lunged forward, thrashing against the chains with such violence that the constructs began to fracture. Hairline cracks spiderwebbed across the glowing links as he leveraged his massive strength, desperate to reach the traitor.

  Caldreth didn't hear the accusation. He didn't feel the chains loosen as Velcryn gestured for his capture. He hung limp in the chains, eyes rolled back, blood still threading down his jaw

  "Secure him," Velcryn ordered, turning his back on the screaming demons. "We have what we came for."

  Vora stooped down as her talons slid gently under Caldreth's unconscious form. She lifted him with care, cradling the Sangrathi against her chest as if he were a child.

  She looked down at him, her green eyes pulsing with a programmed devotion.

  Velcryn paused to look back toward the line of thrashing, furious demons. He looked at Thra-uk, who was still straining against the fracturing chains, and then at Vorzan, whose face was a mask of calculated hatred.

  "We will come for Shatterdeep in time. When we arrive... ensure you are kneeling. Those who bow may yet serve in the new world." Velcryn whispered, his voice carrying through the canyon.

  "Coward!" Thra-uk roared. "Face me!"

  "Why do we leave them?" Myrrakhael rasped, floating closer to his brother, his green flames sputtering with impatience. "They are broken. We could turn them all right now."

  Velcryn paused, a cold, skeletal smile stretching his skin. "And take all the fun out of the game?"

  He looked down at the furious Iron-Born with a look of supreme arrogance.

  "Think how much sweeter the victory will taste, brother. Let them run and rally. Let them build their walls and sharpen their steel." Velcryn's voice dropped to a chilling whisper. "Let them believe they have a chance."

  "And then?" Myrrakhael asked, his head tilting.

  "And then," Velcryn continued, "We crush it. We watch that renewed fury in their eyes burn into a flickering flame, as they realize there is no hope. We show them that all the time they had to prepare meant nothing. Their walls will crumble, their kin will bleed. Nothing they do will matter in the end."

  Velcryn inhaled, as if savoring a scent that hadn't arrived yet.

  "To extinguish that last spark of hope they carry back to Shatterdeep... it will be marvelous."

  The lich raised a hand, pointing a long, skeletal finger toward the northeast.

  "Run back to your home," Velcryn commanded. "Prepare your graves."

  Velcryn turned to glide away, but stopped as his gaze fell upon Krim. The necromancer sneered as the lich approached with a cold smile.

  "And this one," he mused. "You are a child playing with bones. Bring the death-caller. His craft is crude, but he has the spark. He will be useful, if not amusing."

  "Crude?" Krim scoffed, "We practice the same line of darkcraft. You're just twisted things."

  A tendril of green energy lashed out from Myrrakhael's hand and whipped around Krim's wrists like a manacle.

  Myrrakhael yanked the spectral chain taut. Krim yelped as he was pulled off balance, dragged stumbling across the sand toward the lich. He tried to dig his heels in, but Myrrakhael held the leash with the immovable strength of a mountain.

  To add insult to injury, the lich glanced past Krim at his two undead thralls standing motionless in the dust.

  "You won't need your toys," Myrrakhael cackled.

  With a casual, backhanded wave, he unleashed a rolling wave of emerald fire. It washed over the thralls instantly. There was no sound of screaming, only the dry hiss of incineration. In a heartbeat, Krim's servants were nothing but grey ash swirling in the canyon wind.

  Krim watched his hard work vanish, unable to lift a finger. He slumped in the grip of the chain, letting out a low, defeated groan.

  With their prizes secured, the liches began their march away from the canyon. Behind them, the chains holding the demons dissolved into dust now that the casters were gone.

  Thra-uk fell to his knees, his roar of rage echoing off the empty stone walls. Vorzan stood in silence.

  Had they just lost a war before it began?