CHAPTER 50:
The world snapped back into focus with a jolt that left me gasping, knees buckling beneath me. We stood at the edge of the treeline, half a mile below the ridge, the sky above bruised purple and indigo, the first stars pricking through the twilight. The fortress loomed ahead, its stone walls glowing with a harsh, pulsing violet light that seeped through every crack and crevice, turning the snow at its base black. It was the Solstice. The longest night. And the ritual was already underway.
“It’s tonight,” Kael said, his voice ragged as he steadied himself against a tree, the mark on his chest burning so bright it shone through his tunic. “The veil is thinnest. If we don’t stop him before midnight… he completes the binding. And we lose everything.”
“Weakened but alive,” Cole s
