“We have no quarrel, but I will kill you before you breathe a word,” I said. It was a gamble. The elf probably could sense I was a druid, but he had no way of knowing I had no ability. I tried to look so confident I could take him with the sword that I didn’t even need to bother with essence. With the back of his hand, he wiped the blood from his nose. Without a word, he flipped himself backward out of the pit.

“I believed you,” said Murdock.

“I wasn’t bluffing,” I said. I would have killed him. It’s what you do when you have no other option.

War cries and death screams filled the air. High above, Guild security agents kept firing at the Consortium side of the fight. Gerin must have been working on Keeva a long time for her to go along with this.

Something dark fluttered overheard, then dove at us screeching. Murdock reacted instantly and fired his gun. The bullet tore through a leathery wing, and the thing pinwheeled away.

“Nice restraint,” I said.

“I was trying to kill it,” he said without taking his eyes away from the sky.

Pink light flashed between us. Murdock aimed his gun at it, and I swung my sword up. A shocked Joe blanched and held up his hands. “Whoa! I brought help!”

“Sorry, Joe. Things are a little touchy,” I said.

Murdock turned back to the fight. “It’s your brother,” he said.

“Are you kidding me?” I peered over the edge of the grave. Trying to cut a path at the top of the bowl, Callin fought like a man possessed. A second after I saw him, I felt a new welling of essence behind him, wild and unrestrained. The Cluries poured out of the trees, manipulating the warped essence around them. The Clure himself stood back-to-back with Cal, a ridiculous smile on his face.

“Not bad,” said Murdock.

“They’re in their element in this mess,” I said. As chaos-casters, they knew how to use the unpredictable. It’s why they function so well when they’re drunk.

Guild agents swept down at them, shooting streaks of essence that bounced wildly in all directions. They didn’t touch the Cluries, but it kept them pinned at the tree line. As Keeva moved into view overhead, the guards increased their attacks.

“Joe, Keeva’s controlling the guards. Can you take her out?” I asked.

He looked up at her and sighed. “Oh, great, she already doesn’t like me.”

I looked at him from under my brow. “Joe, please.”

He pulled his sword and winked out. A moment later, I saw a flash of pink near Keeva. She shot a bolt of white lightning at him. He vanished and reappeared behind her, hitting her with a blast from his sword. As she turned to face him, he vanished again, repeating his attack strategy over and over. The Guild security guards hovered in confusion as she focused her attention on Joe. He vanished again, longer this time, as Keeva whirled in place looking for him. It would have been amusing under different circumstance. A brilliant flash of pink appeared above Keeva. Joe dove with his sword point down and plunged it into her head. I felt the blow in my stomach.

Keeva tumbled senselessly through the air as Guards raced up. They caught her before she hit and rushed away with her body. Joe popped in next to me.

He reappeared right in my face. “She said hi.”

“Dammit, Joe, I think you killed her,” I snapped.

“Oh, calm down. I didn’t use the blade. I gave her a head shock. She’ll wake up in a week or two,” he said.

It worked, though. Without Keeva, the Guild agents seemed to come to their senses. They moved up higher and began deflecting essence instead of firing it. It wasn’t enough, though. The agents and the Cluries were too outnumbered to stand their ground against everyone else.

The malignant green veining of Gerin’s spell contaminated the essence around me, radiating from the dome. It infected everything—the ground, the trees, and each and every fighter. Gerin hadn’t lied. No one could tap essence without becoming thrall to his spell.

A deep rumbling built around us as the ground vibrated.

“Now what,” I muttered.

The trees shook in a frenzy as a gale wind came up. The tremor increased. Dirt cascaded into the pit as Murdock and I scrambled up the ramp. Trees toppled as the earth heaved upward. The fighting slowed as people felt the effects. The shaking became more severe, and I lost my balance. I grabbed at a tombstone to steady myself. My sensing ability kicked in as a wave of essence flowed over me. A misty halo rose above the ridge, pure essence flickering in a viridian arc across the sky. I could hear a voice raised in song, chanting words I didn’t recognize, a deep language resonant with the Power of the wild oak

The light above the ridge grew brighter and a spray of rock and earth shot into the air as more trees fell. Everything stopped. The wind. The tremoring. Everything but the song of Power. Dust hung in the eerie gray light, outlining a diminutive shape.

On an upthrusting of bedrock, Meryl glowed with preternatural light. My chest ached at the sight of her, her face taut, her eyes roiling with light. She was still alive. I couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked. And terrifying.

A silence fell, a thick heavy pause as though for breath, while the light around Meryl grew even brighter. She threw back her head and screamed. Wind roared as essence cycloned out of her, tearing up everything in its path. A thick, rushing wave of it tore through the fighters, knocking them away like specks of insignificance.

Bolts of essence leaped from her hands, raking across the ground, while above her it fanned into a blaze of flaming emerald. With methodical precision, the lines of Power sought out the taint from Gerin’s spell. Incandescent flashes burst out everywhere as Meryl’s attack burned through the green veining. It gave way before her, retreating into the glowing dome of light. And then she stopped, her voice cutting off abruptly.

In the unnerving quiet of the aftermath, Meryl stood alone facing us from the top of the slope, a fierce white light still glowing in her eyes. My chest ached with astonishment at what she had done. Wherever her essence wave touched, it purged Gerin’s spell until the entire clearing was devoid of his Power.

As I got to my feet, the sword felt awkward in my hand. Granite from the tombstone had flowed over my skin. I could see the troll residue clearly now, an azure haze over my body. With pain stabbing in my head, I forced my essence to push the stone off me. It crumbled into dust.

Murdock stood next to me, his gun clenched in his hand, breathing heavily. He didn’t say a word but nodded at me.

Behind us, the dome rumbled and groaned. In a tumult of color, it expanded with a deep shudder. A wave of dizziness came over me as I felt a pull at my chest. Essence flowed under my feet like the undertow of surf. It streamed into the dome, leaving nothing but dead earth behind it. Truly dead, without a spark of life or essence in it. The dome pulsed and bulged, lightning crackling on its surface. We backed up the slope away from it.

“A harrowing,” Joe said, his voice thick with horror.

I didn’t realize he was still with us. He hovered behind me, his face white with fear. For a moment, I thought a trick of the light made him appear transparent. Then I realized it was no trick. Joe was fading.

“Get out, Joe. Get out before it kills you!” I shouted. He brought his hands in front of his face. I could see through them, saw his eyes widen. The dome was pulling his essence out of him, sucking up his life force with frightening speed. Without another word, he winked out.

Essence coursed past us in ribbons of color. Murdock and I backed away as the dome ground closer. A new wind came up, and we pressed against it to the top of the ridge. Meryl stood alone now, still glowing with enormous Power. Everyone else had fled.

“What the hell is a harrowing?” he asked.