**This chapters has brief mentions of off page SA**

Darcie knew they were being hunted. Kaidos warriors were tracking them, their voices drifting closer by the second. Sounds that left her hands trembling a little.

It annoyed her. Only because she had plans to slit Walker’s throat before sunrise but to her surprise, she had fallen asleep. And after only a few hours of rest, the Shade prince shoo...

Hundreds of feet in elevation, Bane Korrik stood atop the frozen mountain, eyes fixed on where he thought the smoke would be rising in the distance. 

He forced himself to acknowledge the destruction. 

Even as he glanced at grey skies and storm clouds, he knew what was happening in Wynthril––everyone did. 

But somewhere beyond the icy rise of Iskgard, Shades ransacked the kingdom, burning everyt...

He hated it, the guilt. 

Something clawed at Walker's chest the moment he realized that Conroe had fallen with the driftwing. After all, Walker had been the one to convince him to travel, despite his father’s warriors. 

Which only meant that they had to move as far away from the border as possible. Even though the warriors had no way of knowing if he was on it, that wouldn’t stop them from comin...

It had been said that silence could reveal the truth if you allowed it to linger long enough to listen. Darcie realized now that perhaps the words were a truth of its own. 

The silence that hovered in the frozen air was as stifling as any truth she’d discovered, her only reminder at how alone she had just become. Something she didn’t want to be at the moment.

It was the type of silence that had ...

Since the Kaidos warriors retreated in the night, Darcie had spent the day sitting next to her fathers grave whispering her goodbyes on the salty breeze. She’d picked through the remnants of her burnt home, scavenging what she could while tears fell to the mossy ground.

Nothing. She had nothing left.

What had once been a grand wooden cabin tucked along the forested coast was now nothing but soot...

Fires exploded across the land, leaving Darcie Whittle to flinch as she curled further into the disintegrating alley wall. Nose scrunching, stone scraped against her back as rocky debris fell to her feet.

The very walls trembled.  

Kaidos warriors flooded the streets, searching for Aurens to slaughter. They were out for blood and Wynthril was crumbling despite their best effort. Smoke curled in ...

The darkness pressed in, quiet and heavy. Patient. Waiting. Just like every other nightmare Walker had ever dreamed.

It was a suffocating void, choking as if it had hands of its own, making his pulse throb like ice beneath his skin. The only reminder of that dreadful isolation he hated so much. Still, not a trace of warmth stirred in his veins.

Not a single trace of his fire.

Walker supposed ...