The Solstice night was frigid. For the first time in two hundred years, there was no gala taking place in the ballroom. Torian promised the Council and the people of Aethelgard that once the kingdom was secure, and the threat that Valerius had created was gone, there would be a celebration unlike any Aethelgard had ever seen. That seemed to appease the masses.
Now, he stood in the deepest chamber of the Drakemoor Vaults, energy crackling in the air, mixing heat with the cold that penetrated the stone walls.
The Royal Scepter’s sapphire blazed with a continuous, painful blue-white light. Torian stood ready. Morwyn was beside him, her expression a mix of fierce hope and dread. “The Solstice alignment is stable. The Veil will be at its thinnest over the origin point. The probe has confirme
