I took off at a run, needing to buy a few seconds to spin psi.

The harbinger adjusted his course the moment I did.

He wasn’t slowing down either, and I could only guess he meant to run me through. The seed’s death seemed to have infuriated him beyond reason, and cold sphere or not, he was coming to finish me off himself.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much mana to channel the frost ent’s stolen spell for long, leaving me disinclined to meet the stygian Power head on. Killing the weavers with death’s cacophony—on top of stealing the spell in the first place—had drained my magic reserves. Staying out of reach of my foe’s claws and spells was my best hope.

The stygian chimera darkened the mist above.

He was now close enough to see with the naked eye. Choosing a nearby nether creature at random, I shadow blinked.

You have teleported into a stygian crawler’s shadow.

You have evaded a harbinger’s attack.

I smiled as I stepped out of the aether, safely out of harm’s way. I could do this all day if I had to.

The crawler flailed at me. Deftly avoiding the attack, I made no move to respond in kind and backed away instead. Focusing on the harbinger’s mindglow, I waited to see what form his next attack would take.

But the stygian Power did not move. Or talk.

Retreating still further, I frowned. I could feel the hatred emanating from him. The harbinger wanted to rend me from limb to limb. So why was he sitting unmoving?

But if the harbinger wanted to waste time, I was content to let him do so. Using the opportunity afforded by the lull in battle, I scanned the area anew with my mindsight.

I failed to spot Ghost, though.

That both relieved and worried me. Was she safe? Had she found refuge? I didn’t know, nor could I afford to seek out answers just yet.

I set aside further thought of my companion. As concerned as I was for her, I couldn’t afford to dwell on her fate. If I was going to live, I had to find the remaining spores quickly.

Unfortunately, I had little idea where they were, and would have to rely on the Game alerts to notify me when I drew close to one. Then I would have to kill it—somehow. Choosing a direction at random, I began searching the fog.

The crawlers were no longer a threat. They still moved towards me, but in a lackluster fashion. That worried me, as did the harbinger’s inaction. But I could do nothing about either.

“Killing the chosen was a mistake,” the harbinger said abruptly, finally deigning to speak.

I rolled my eyes. Were we back to this again?

“Now, I have no reason to hold back,” the harbinger continued.

My amusement faded. What did that mean?

A stygian harbinger has cast oblivion.

What spell is that?

I was nearly seventy yards away from the stygian Power and couldn’t see him or the effects of the spell he had just cast. Was I its target? Drawing psi, I readied shadow blink—just in case I needed to reposition quickly.

A second passed. Then another, and still nothing came at me.

I frowned. What is he—

A stygian crawler has died.

A stygian crawler has died.

...

…

In the space of two seconds, half the remaining nether creatures were wiped out. My frown deepened. Was the harbinger killing the crawlers? Why would he do that?

The fog flashed black in front of my eyes.

Stumbling backward, I turned around and ran, knowing instinctively that the black flash was what had killed the crawlers. But there was no outrunning it, and a split-second later, darkness enfolded me.

Not a comforting, sheltering darkness of the type I’d grown accustomed to.

Not nearly.

This one stank of death.

You have entered an oblivion field. Oblivion is a death spell that destroys any living thing it encounters. Few can resist its touch, and for those that don’t, death is instantaneous.

You have failed a magical resistance check!

You have disintegrated!

✵ ✵ ✵

My eyes and mouth snapped open as awareness returned with jarring suddenness.

Liquid splashed into my mouth, and I sat upright, choking and gasping. Panic-stricken, I stared at my hands. They were whole. But I remembered them being not; I remembered them turning into specks of dust before my eyes. Memory tickled, and my throat clenched.

The black flash.

Would it come again?

Heart racing, I surged to my feet, my right hand instinctively finding the hilt of ebonheart. Where was the harbinger? Was he closing in for the kill? I spun around and a flash of white caught my eye—my newbie shorts.

I jerked to a stop. I am dead.

Fragmented memories reconnected. Was dead, I corrected.

I was alive again—which could only mean I was in a rebirth well. I sagged in relief. The harbinger had lied then. The sector’s safe zone still stood free of the void.

Which was good. I would need every advantage at hand to extricate myself from my predicament. Raising my head, I studied my surroundings.

It was completely devoid of people. But in stark contrast to much of the dungeon, the safe zone was not barren. The soil was fertile and topped with grass, plants, and a smattering of trees. There was even a pond. It lay to my left, its waters still and clear. The setting was by no means idyllic, but compared to the rest of Draven’s Reach, the safe zone was an oasis.

Unfortunately, the rest of the vicinity was less reassuring.

The safe zone was also home to a handful of buildings. They were log cabins, like those in the wolves’ valley—but where those had been well-kept, these were ancient, their timbers missing or rotted, leading me to believe them long-abandoned.

It was what lay beyond the safe zone that concerned me the most, though.

To the left was a wall of mist. To the right, the same. Craning my neck upward, I beheld more mist. It could mean only one thing.

The safe zone is in a fog bank.

Crestfallen, I bowed my head. The harbinger had not lied then; he’d stretched the truth perhaps, but not lied.

“Welcome back.”

I started at the words. The voice was familiar, disturbingly familiar. But how could he be here? Whirling around, I found myself staring into the harbinger’s beady eyes.

Bloody hell!

The stygian was not in the safe zone, but I was sure he stood at its very edge, his forelegs and beak pressed up against the barrier protecting it. Look at me, his posture seemed to say, the Game may be keeping me out for now, but for how much longer will that hold true?

Not letting any glimmer of my despair show, I stiffened my limbs and stepped forward. My legs trembled, still shaky from my recent resurrection, but they held firm as I strode towards the harbinger with affected nonchalance.

The stygian watched me the whole way, his eyes gleaming with predatory intent. “How did you like being dead?” he asked as I drew to a stop three feet away.

I shrugged. “I can’t complain. But as you can see, I’m back again. Your revenge, such as it was, counts for naught.”

A throaty chuckle escaped the harbinger. “Your bluster will not save you, wolfling.” Unfurling his wings, he battered them against the invisible barrier that separated us. “This is your new home. Come out and you die.”

I raised one eyebrow. “What? You mean to tell me you intend on standing guard here the entire time? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Oh, I have minions aplenty to watch you. You will not escape, rest assured. But don’t take my word for it. Try to escape. You will die.”

I said nothing. I was happy to let the harbinger talk in the hopes he would reveal something about the topic I was most desperate to broach—Ghost. But, so far, he only seemed interested in gloating, and I had no idea how the spirit wolf fared.

Was she alive? Yes. Maybe.

How far had the harbinger’s oblivion spell reached? Not across the entire canyon, surely.

Had it seeped into her hiding place? It couldn’t have.

Had the harbinger gone looking for her after I died? Why would he, though?

Could Ghost have escaped notice if he had? Of course. I hope.

Not knowing my companion’s fate was driving me crazy. I wanted to ask after Ghost. But doing that would only let the harbinger know how important she was to me. She was a weakness he could exploit. And until I was free, I had to accept there was nothing I could do to protect her.

“Why is the void in Draven’s Reach?” I asked suddenly, realizing I had been silent too long.

The harbinger looked taken aback by the question. It was a forthright demand for information, and quite unlike the back and forth sniping that had made up the better part of our exchanges so far. “What do you mean?” he asked slowly.

“What purpose does conquering this dungeon serve the void?” I asked. “Why come here at all? It’s not like there are that many people to slaughter to begin with.” I voiced my questions boldly despite knowing little of the nether or its objectives. But given my recent clashes with the stygians, it was high time I understood them better.

“The void goes where the void will,” the harbinger said cryptically.

I waved aside his non-answer. “But why come here?”

“That is not knowledge I care to share with you, wolfling,” he replied scornfully.

“Don’t you know?” I retorted.

Stiff silence.

My eyes widened. “You don’t, do you? Don’t tell me the void’s chosen have decided not to share the information with you?” I probed, hoping to shake loose any little nugget of information I could.

The harbinger lashed his reptilian tail angrily. “You are ignorant as a child, wolfling, picking and prodding at things you do not understand.”

“Then enlighten me,” I snapped.

“The void trees are beyond reproof!”

Interesting. So, the void trees were the ‘chosen,’ and if a being as powerful as the harbinger revered them, what did that make the trees?

Powers, I thought, shuddering at the realization. It makes them Major Powers. Beings on par with Loken and his fellows, and perhaps even the Primes.

“Where are we?” I demanded in another abrupt change of topic.

“Why? Are you thinking of returning to your corpse?” the harbinger countered.

I didn’t say anything.

“You are smaller than I realized,” he added. “Are you sure you’re a scion?”

The questions threw me for a moment, then it left me wondering if the harbinger was starved of conversation. Now that my initial shock at his presence here had passed, I realized there was no reason for the stygian to be here at all.

In fact, the harbinger would have done better to ambush me anew when I left the safe zone. Instead, he’d given up the element of surprise. And for what?

To gloat.

To utter meaningless threats, and for no apparent reason that I could discern, he seemed intent on continuing the discussion. Let’s see how he handles rejection.

Turning around, I walked away. “Goodbye, harbinger,” I called over my shoulder. “We’ll meet again. And next time, I promise you, it won’t go so well for you.”

For a drawn-out moment, silence reigned.

“We’re in the heart of the dungeon, of course,” the harbinger said suddenly, ignoring my parting words entirely.

I swung back to face him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t you know? We’re in the central fog bank.”

Of course. It made sense that Draven Reach’s safe zone would be in its center. And it made sense, too, that that would be where the stygians would concentrate the greater part of their efforts.

But it also meant leaving the safe zone was going to be even harder than I expected. The central fog bank covered an entire square mile, I recollected. All of it surely chock-full of stygians, too, I thought, despair mounting.

This time, despite my efforts to the contrary, some glimmer of emotion escaped, and the harbinger spotted it immediately.

He chuckled throatily. “Ah, I see you understand your situation better now.”

Not able to muster enough conviction for a retort, I swung away and headed back to the rebirth well.

I had a lot to consider.