Xylora crouched in the skeletal remains of the highest bell tower in Nethervale, her claws digging into the soot-stained masonry. Below her, the ruined city was a graveyard of giants, shattered spires, and hollowed-out domes protruding from the grey dunes like broken ribs.

  "Movement," Hassin whispered from the shadows behind her.

  Xylora didn't need to be told. Her vertical pupils had already dilated, focusing on the plaza far below.

  The earth was opening up.

  Near the center of the ruins, a heavy stone slab covering a subterranean stairwell had been pushed aside. From the darkness of the earth, a green light spilled out, sickly and vibrant against the nightly, grey monochrome of the Wastes.

  A figure floated up from the depths. He was wreathed in emerald fire, his body skeletal and draped in rotting ceremonial robes.

  A lich.

  "Vorzan and the others spoke true," Kael breathed, his fingers twitching nervously.

  The lich drifted through the plaza, and he was not alone. A host of infected followed him out of the ground, shambling corpses with green-fire eyes.

  A few hundred infected, marching straight for the eastern gate, leaving the city behind.

  "They are leaving," Xylora murmured, watching the column disappear into the ash-choked dunes. "The city is emptying out."

  She narrowed her eyes behind the black glass of her visor, tracking the ragged line of infected shuffling east.

  "This cannot be the army the liches promised Vorzan and Thra-uk," she spat, her voice dripping with disdain. "Look at them. A few hundred thralls? A handful of beasts? Such a pitiful host could never take Shatterdeep. The Sovereign would crush them before they reached the citadel."

  "We have seen enough," Kael hissed, stepping back from the ledge. "We have confirmed the lich. We have seen the army. Dagrimor's orders were clear: get eyes on the enemy, then report."

  "Report what?" Xylora snapped, not looking back. "That a dead thing walked out of a hole and went for a walk? We don't know where he is going or why. Besides, I'm to meet with the humans before reporting back. Something I'd prefer to delay as long as possible. They smell terrible."

  She pointed a clawed hand toward the open stairwell in the plaza below.

  "He came from beneath. That is where the answers are."

  "Mistress," Hassin urged, reaching out to grab her arm. "We are exposed here. If we go down there, we are cut off from the Wastes. We should leave immediately."

  Xylora looked at the hand touching her arm, then up at Hassin's face. Her expression was one of pure, venomous disgust.

  "When did the Sandsworn become so soft?" she scoffed. "I leave you under Ragith-Kar's command, and you turn into frightened children?"

  She ripped her arm away.

  "Ragith-Kar has let your training rot. I will see to it personally when we return to Shatterdeep. But if you flee now, the punishment will be far worse than anything a lich could do to you."

  Ragith-Kar said nothing. He wasn't even looking at the lich. He was staring intently at the streets below, his eyes darting frantically between the shadows, searching for a ghost he couldn't find.

  "We go down," Xylora commanded. She stepped off the ledge.

  For a second, she fell. Then, her body dissolved into a cloud of shifting, abrasive sand. She hit the ground below without a sound, reforming instantly into her solid, horned form. Above, the other three hesitated, then followed, landing around her in silent bursts of dust.

  "To the stairs," Xylora ordered. "Keep to the shadows."

  They moved through the ruins. The city wasn't empty; stragglers of the infected still roamed the alleyways, twitching and groaning.

  Xylora was efficient. Whenever a path was blocked, she flicked her wrist, sending a pebble or a wave of sand skittering down a side street. The infected turned toward the noise, growling, clearing the way for the demons to slip past.

  They reached the plaza. The open stairwell gaped like a mouth, breathing cold, stale air up at them. Xylora stopped at the edge of the pit, looking down into the gloom. The steps were cut from solid basalt.

  "Stone," she whispered, her eyes narrowing. "And iron. The earth down there will be dead. No grit."

  She knelt, placing her palm flat against the plaza floor.

  "If the environment will not provide," Xylora murmured, her golden runes flaring, "then we bring the environment with us."

  She pulled her hand up. The sand around her feet snapped to her will.

  Grains of red sand, dust, and ash swirled around her legs, compressing instantly into hard, jagged plates. She drew more, pulling the very dunes toward her, thickening the layer until her shins, forearms, and torso were encased in a second skin of pressurized sandstone.

  A reserve of the Wastes clinging to her body, ready to be stripped and weaponized in the dark.

  Kael and Hassin watched, their eyes wide. They looked at the dark stairwell, then at the endless supply of sand at their feet.

  "Brilliant," Kael breathed.

  Without a word, the Sandsworn mimicked her. They drew the grit to them, forming bulky, ablative plating over their leather armor. They looked heavier now, bulkier, but they carried the lethality of the storm with them.

  Xylora stood, the sand-plate shifting silently beneath her. She looked back at Ragith-Kar.

  "Suit up, Ragith," she ordered, turning toward the stairs. "We don't know how deep this goes."

  Ragith-Kar didn't move. He was looking back toward the ruins, his body rigid as wire.

  Through a gap in the masonry, a figure was visible, watching the army depart. For a brief moment, he caught the glint of a luminous emerald horn.

  "Ragith?" Xylora snapped, stepping back from the ledge. "We are moving."

  "I saw her," Ragith-kar whispered. He pointed a trembling hand toward the ruins. "The green horn. Vora is alive."

  Xylora followed his gaze. The ruins were empty. Just dust and shadow.

  "There is nothing there," Xylora said, her voice hard. "It is a trick of the mind. Even if she is here, the Sandsworn she once was is gone."

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  "No," Ragith-kar said. The denial was quiet, but it hit the air like a hammer. He turned his back on the stairwell. "She is watching us."

  "If she is watching, then she is infected," Xylora countered, stepping into his path. She blocked his way to the ruins, her hand resting on her sword hilt. "We have a mission, Sandsworn. Do you understand?"

  Ragith-kar looked at her. Then he looked at the dark stairwell, the duty he had sworn to uphold. Then he looked at the ruins, the love he couldn't let go of.

  His runes flared, erratic and bright.

  "I cannot leave her to the infection, Commander," he said, his voice breaking.

  "If you walk away now," Xylora warned, her voice dropping to a lethal hiss, "you are not a Sandsworn. You are a deserter. I will have to mark you as an enemy of the Sovereign."

  The silence between them stretched, heavy with centuries of shared combat. Kael and Hassin watched, paralyzed.

  Ragith-kar stepped back.

  "Then mark me," Ragith-kar said softly. "Forgive me, Xylora."

  He didn't wait for her to draw her blade. He turned and sprinted, blurring into a streak of speed as he raced away.

  Xylora watched him go, her jaw tightening until her teeth ached. She wanted to chase him. She wanted to drag him back or cut him down. But the cold draft from the stairwell rushed over her ankles, a reminder of the greater threat.

  "Commander?" Kael asked, his voice shaking. "Do we pursue?"

  Xylora turned back to the darkness, her face a mask of stone.

  "No. He made his choice," she said, though the words tasted like ash. "Let the ruins have him. We have information to gather.

  She stepped into the gloom.

  "Move," she commanded, her voice echoing off the walls. "Before the rear guard returns."

  She, Kael, and Hassin slipped into the underground.

  The spiral stairs went deep. The air grew colder, and the familiar, comforting grit of the surface wind vanished, replaced by damp stone and the metallic tang of magic.

  "We should go back," Hassin said. "We need him."

  "We need nothing," Xylora spat. "If he wants to die chasing a memory, let him. He is not our concern right now. We have a mission."

  She turned toward the corridor ahead, pushing deeper into the subterranean complex.

  It was different down here. On the surface, Xylora felt like a goddess; the sand obeyed her every whim. Here, amidst the basalt and cold iron, the sand was scarce. She could feel her connection to the earth dampening, like a flame deprived of oxygen.

  "Mistress," Kael whispered, pointing ahead.

  A group of Infected stood at the intersection, their backs to the oncoming travelers, blocking the left path.

  Xylora prepared a blast of grit, scraping what little sand she could from the floor, but before she could loose it, she decided against it.

  "Right," Xylora hissed. "We go right."

  They took the right corridor. Fifty yards later, another door was blocked by rubble and a large, hulking brute of a corpse.

  "Left," Hassin called out.

  They moved fast, outmaneuvering the dumb beasts. Finally, the corridor opened up into a massive, vaulted antechamber. The ceiling was lost in shadow. The floor was polished black stone, scrubbed clear of debris.

  Xylora stepped into the room, her claws clicking loudly on the pristine floor.

  "Clear," Hassin breathed, relaxing slightly.

  Xylora didn't relax. She stopped, looking down at the floor. It was too clean, no grit. Just cold, polished stone. Her hands snapped to her hips, fingers locking around the hilts of her twin swords with a desperate, white-knuckled grip.

  "It's too clean," she whispered, the realization hitting her like a physical blow. "We need to-"

  Xylora spun around, intending to retreat. She stopped dead.

  The heavy iron doors to the chamber were wide open, but the path was gone. The dark corridor they had just walked through was now choked with a wall of rotting flesh. The infected they had bypassed, the ones that had seemed so easily tricked, stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking the exit.

  "Welcome," a voice rasped.

  It came from the shadows on the far side of the room. The darkness seemed to detach itself from the wall. A figure floated forward, tall and skeletal. His sockets burned with a cold intelligence that froze the blood in Xylora's veins.

  Velcryn.

  He stood alone, yet the weight of his presence filled the room. A shockwave of shining, glacial blue light erupted from the lich's form. The force of it slammed into the walls, igniting the dormant iron braziers lining the chamber in a synchronized roar of azure flame, banishing the shadows in seconds.

  The sudden illumination revealed a horrifying sight.

  As the light washed over the vaulted ceiling and the sheer stone walls, it revealed a nightmare. Hundreds of infected were clinging to the masonry like insects, their pale, rot-slicked skin glowing in the corpse-light. They hung upside down, their claws dug into the stone, staring down at the three demons with hungry, blue-fire eyes.

  Xylora felt the arrogance drain from her chest, replaced by a cold, tightening knot of realization.

  Two, she thought, her mind racing to recalculate the odds.

  She had just watched a column of hundreds march into the Wastes with the green lich. She had assumed that was their main force, a desperate gambit to gather scraps. But here, hidden in the rafters of the ruin, was a second host.

  Both Liches have returned. And they have separated.

  The realization hit her like a physical blow. If the green one had taken a different host out of Nethervale, and the blue one held hundreds here, how many more were festering out of sight?

  Her grip on her sword hilts loosened slightly, her confidence wavering. She had mocked their numbers moments ago, but now the math had changed. If they could field this many disciplined thralls, and coordinate them across two fronts...

  They aren't just scavenging, Xylora realized, a chill seeping through her armor. They are preparing.

  Velcryn stood amidst the blue inferno, his skeletal face illuminated by the cold fire.

  "You scurry well," the lich noted, his voice booming now, magnified by his power. "I block a path, you turn. I close a door, you find another. You are excellent sheep."

  He threw his head back and laughed, a terrible, grating sound like a crypt door being forced open after a thousand years. He relished the look of horror on their faces, savoring the panic of predators who had realized they were prey.

  "Did you truly think you went unseen?" Velcryn sneered. "I've been busy, bleeding my essence into the mortar of this city. Every stone, every shadow, every grain of dust reports to me."

  Velcryn floated up in the air, looking down at Xylora with disgust.

  "Just as I know about the stray," Velcryn whispered, his smile widening. "The broken one who slipped away to chase a memory."

  Xylora stiffened.

  "Did he really think he found her by chance?" Velcryn asked, his voice dripping with mock pity. "I placed her there. Ever so carefully. Just out of sight, just enough to catch the eye."

  "I knew he would follow. A little lure for a sad little Sandsworn."

  Velcryn spread his arms, and the hundreds of creatures on the walls hissed in unison, their muscles tensing to drop.

  "I took the liberty of sweeping the floor," Velcryn said softly. "Your dominion over the sand is absolute, I admit. It was a variable Myrrakhael, and I had never encountered it before we entered the Wastes so long ago."

  Velcryn's gaze hardened into hatred.

  "It was a thorn in our side then," he spat, the blue fire flaring, "and I will not suffer it today."

  - - -

  Ragith-Kar scrambled over a pile of collapsed masonry, his breathing ragged.

  He didn't look back at the stairwell. He didn't think about Xylora, the Sandsworn, or the mission. The only thing that existed was the flash of emerald he had seen through the gap in the wall.

  Vora.

  The city was silent now. The army had marched. The patrols were gone. It was just the wind whistling through the broken ribs of the buildings.

  He found her in a plaza, standing motionless beneath a shattered archway. She wasn't hiding. She was... waiting. Like a statue left out in the rain.

  Ragith-Kar slowed, his heart hammering against his ribs. He stepped out from the shadows, his hands trembling.

  "Vora?" he whispered.

  The figure turned.

  It was her. The same curve of the horns, the same sharp, angular jawline he had traced with his claws a thousand times.

  "Vora," Ragith-Kar said, his voice cracking. He took a step forward, hope blooming in his chest like a painful flower. "It's me. It's Ragith."

  She watched him approach. Her face was a mask of perfect, terrible indifference.

  Her eyes, once a warm amber, were now pools of endless viridian. The skin around them was cracked, veins of necrosis pulsing beneath the surface.

  "I thought you were dead," Ragith-Kar choked out, reaching for her. "They took you. But you're here. We can... we can go back. Xylora is here. We can leave this place."

  He was five feet away now. Close enough to touch. Vora didn't speak.

  She slowly raised her hand.

  Ragith-Kar froze. Her hand didn't end in the familiar, calloused claws of a desert scout. They had mutated, lengthening into sharp talons that glistened in the gloom.

  A noise rose from her throat. Ragith-Kar leaned in, desperate. She remembers. She's trying to speak.

  But the sound that escaped wasn't a name. It was a wet, gurgling scream, a hollow, empty sound like wind rushing over a broken flute. It was the sound of a throat that hadn't drawn breath in months.

  The crystalline horn atop her forehead began to glow, vibrating with a high-pitched resonance that hurt Ragith-Kar's ears.

  From the ruins all around him, the shadows peeled back. A series of green eyes, dozens of them, ignited in the darkness.

  The infected had been waiting. Ragith-Kar's strength was ripped away. He fell to his knees on the stone, looking up at those terrible viridian pits that used to draw him in atop the Spire of Silence.

  "Vora..." he sobbed, the realization shattering him. "You're truly gone."

  She looked down at him, the talons poised to strike. The ground beneath them buckled.

  A shockwave of sound erupted from the earth, a guttural, mechanical roar that shook the dust from the buildings. From the open stairwell in the center of the plaza, a pillar of blinding, glacial-blue light shot into the sky, screaming like a banshee.

  Ragith-Kar flinched, his head snapping toward the sound of the explosion.

  "Xylora..." he breathed, realizing a trap had sprung.