The wind screamed like a gut-wounded beast across the towers of Black Claw fortress. Storm clouds hung above the horizon, dense and low, and thunder rumbled across the summits.

But inside stone walls, something much wilder had been let loose.

Melucia's bare feet pounded against cold stone, her breathing heaving, her hands smeared with blood and filled with magic. Seraphine's hair—tousled and matted and sticky with new wounds—was knotted viciously around Melucia's tightly closed fist. The ...