The forest was alive with whispers. A thousand cicadas sang in the heat of the night, and yet beneath their drone came a hum older and darker, a rhythm born not of nature but of ritual. Deep in the thickets, where the moonlight barely reached, a circle of witches stood cloaked in ash-colored robes, their faces painted with soot and bone dust.

Tonight was their gathering day, the day when the Ashen Kin renewed their covenant with the spirits and bent their heads to the will of their dead ...