Wind howled through the pines, ripping leaves from branches and rattling the very bones of the sanctuary. The sky above was a bruised curtain of dark cloud, stained purple and sickly green by spirit magic. Lightning carved fissures in the heavens, and the earth itself groaned as if bracing for what was to come.

Aria stood at the head of her army, the Moonstone Sanctuary behind her, her people arrayed across the hillside. The Stormfront Pact had gathered—spirit wolves, healers, elementalists, ...