She closed her eyes, took a breath, and allowed herself to remember the things she had been fighting so hard to forget.
“Shivnath is the god and guardian of the Smarlands, the eastern kingdom of Allentria. I lived in a secluded village in the north and I grew up worshiping her. When it came time to participate in my town’s coming-of-age ceremony, I went into the wild, and . . . something strange happened.”
She decided to gloss over the fact that she had died on that occasion. Viran already thought she was a liar—best not push her luck.
“Shivnath appeared to me and asked for my help. She’s bound by a set of magical laws that prevent her from meddling in mortal affairs, and she needed a human to do what she couldn’t. She said Necrovar had torn through the magicthreads of the Etherworld, t
