Chloé was jolted from her fitful, gray sleep not by the fading images of her dream. Not the stench of the shadow figures, but by a firm, trembling hand on her shoulder. The air in the hollow of the island's tree had grown stagnant and heavy with the scent of damp leaves and moss.

  "Awaken, child," Mrs. Clary whispered, her voice tight with a fear Chloé had never heard before. "Someone is riding this way. We must hide."

  Chloé blinked away the grit of her nightmares. Through the narrow opening of the roots, she could see that the world had turned to a bruised gold; it was nearly sunset. The long shadows of the trees stretched across the pond like reaching fingers. They scrambled back into the deepest recess of the hollow, Chloé positioning herself so she could peer out through a notch in the bark without being seen.

  A rider appeared at the edge of the clearing. He was a ruin of a man, his clothing tattered and soaked in a dark, sticky crimson that didn't belong to him. He moved with a leaden exhaustion, dismounting by the stream and leading his gasping horse to the water. The man didn't wait; he collapsed into the shallow current, frantically scrubbing at his sleeves and face as if trying to wash away the memory of the night. When he finally emerged, wringing out his tunic with shaking hands, the silence of the woods was shattered.

  Two more riders, clad in the same dried-blood armor Chloé had seen in her vision, crested the ridge. They didn't offer a parley. They drew their swords, the steel catching the birthing light, and charged.

  The man by the stream moved with a sudden, desperate fluidity. He dodged the first pass, the blade whistling inches from his ribs. As the second rider swung, the man dipped low, lunging forward to grab the soldier’s arm. With a violent wrench, he pulled the armored man from his saddle. Before the soldier could find his feet, the man snatched up the fallen sword and drove it deep into the soldier’s throat.

  The remaining rider dismounted, his boots hitting the mud with a heavy thud. He charged wildly, his strikes fueled by rage. The man blocked every blow, the ring of steel on steel echoing through the trees with a cacophony of sounds. It was a dance of survival that ended with a single, surgical slash across the soldier's neck. The armored man fell to his knees, his hands clutching a wound that could not be closed, his eyes wide with a terrified realization before he slumped forward into the dirt.

  "Chloé!" the survivor shouted, returning to the stream to splash his face once more. "My love, are you here?"

  It was Jeremiah. The man of her heart was back, though he looked more like a specter of war than her groom. Chloé didn't wait for Mrs. Clary’s warning; she burst from the tree and threw herself into his arms. The embrace was fierce, a desperate confirmation of life that she yearned for, and she kissed him with a longing that tasted of salt and woodsmoke.

  Her joy was cut short by his sharp wince of pain. As he set her down, she saw the dark stain spreading across his trouser leg; the same leg she had seen in her dream. The bandage was gone, and the wound was weeping fresh blood.

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  "You were struck," she gasped, her hands hovering over the injury.

  "A lucky blow from a dying man," Jeremiah rasped, his voice raw. "We drove them off, Chloé, but only for a time. We questioned one before he found a blade for his own throat. They were but a vanguard of a hundred and fifty. The main host... it numbers in the thousands."

  He looked toward the city, his expression somber. "I came to ensure you were safe before I return to the walls. We lost a dozen men in the breach, including some of Thomas’s newest recruits. The ones who survived are being activated at once. I cannot stay."

  "You mustn't go back," Chloé cried, her voice breaking. "You will be killed. My dream, Jeremiah... I saw your leg. I saw you at the gate, fighting the men with the beam. I saw the arrow strike the soldier behind you."

  Jeremiah froze, his hand tightening on his horse’s reins. "How could you know that? It happened exactly as you say. Thomas and I... we were the only ones there at the end."

  "I saw it!" she exclaimed, “I can't explain it. I just saw it,” her eyes filling with tears. "I saw a man in dark armor with a golden hourglass on his cloak. He is surrounding the city tonight. He has creatures, Jeremiah. Formless things with black fur and acid for blood. You cannot fight them with steel alone!"

  The clearing fell silent, the only sound was the soft grazing of the horse. Mrs. Clary stepped forward then, her presence shifting. She no longer looked like a meddling widow; she looked like a woman carrying the weight of centuries.

  "The enemy you face cannot be beaten by normal means," the old woman said, her voice a solemn vibration in the air. "Bows and axes are useless against the Luna Stala. It has been thirteen hundred years, but the cycle has turned. The Crimson Cloak of the Man of Time has returned to Tenroha."

  She looked at them both, her eyes piercing. "These creatures are demons summoned from a realm beyond our own. They are weak in the light, but in the darkness of the new moon, they can take any shape they desire. This is a fight you will not win on the ramparts, boy."

  "What do you mean?" Jeremiah asked, his hand drifting to his sword.

  "Follow me, and the truth will be revealed," Mrs. Clary said, turning back toward the tree. "Hurry now. More riders approach from the north."

  They saw them then; five crimson shapes moving at full speed across the lowland. Jeremiah and Chloé scrambled back into the hollow, but Mrs. Clary had vanished.

  "Where are you, woman?" Jeremiah hissed into the dark.

  "Stop shouting," her voice drifted from a small, square hole in the earth at the back of the roots. She poked her head out. "Come. This way."

  They followed her down into a cool, limestone cavern that lay beneath the pond. Jeremiah looked around in bewilderment. "I’ve sat in this tree dozens of times. I never saw a door here."

  "You weren't looking for one," Mrs. Clary giggled, a sound that felt out of place in the gloom. She gestured to a smooth, unyielding section of the cavern wall. "Now, Chloé. Place your hand on the stone. Close your eyes and think of the word: Open."

  Chloé obeyed, her palm flat against the cold rock. She focused with all her might, but the stone remained solid. She tried again, her breath hitching, but nothing moved.

  "Odd," Mrs. Clary muttered, her brow furrowing. "I’d thought for sure... well. Jeremiah, you try. Maybe it's you."

  Jeremiah pressed his calloused hand to the wall, his jaw set, but the stone didn't budge for him either.

  "Very well," the old woman sighed, stepping forward. "I suppose I must do it. Lean against the wall, both of you."

  She placed her withered hand on the surface. Without a sound, the solid limestone vanished into nothingness. Jeremiah and Chloé tumbled backward into a void of absolute, suffocating darkness. Before they could cry out, they hit a floor of smooth stone. Jeremiah reached back, his fingers met with the cold, hard wall once more. It had returned, sealing them in.

  "What just happened?" Jeremiah whispered, his voice trembling with a new kind of fear.