Something wet and hot was running down his face. Blood.

He was still holding the mysterious cloth-covered object. Perhaps Azure could look at it for him.

Azure!

Fear tore into his gut. What had the murderer done to his familiar?

“Azure!” he called hoarsely. “Azure!” He had turned and was running blindly, arm stretched out. His hand struck a wall and he nearly fell. There came a faint whistle from behind.

He spun around and saw with intense relief a coil of Numinous censoring texts lying on what he assumed to be the windowsill. The murderer had bound the bird magically but had not killed her. The villain must have known hurting Azure would have made recruiting him impossible.

Shannon hurried to pick up the censored bird.

In her fear, Azure bit his pinky hard enough to draw blood. But Shannon wouldn’t have cared if she had snapped his finger in two. Cooing softly, he unwound the censoring texts from the bird’s head.

Once her mind was free, Azure cast to him a deluge of terrified text: a white-cloaked figure appearing in the hallway and a blazing Numinous spell that came from outside the tower to envelop her mind.

It seemed odd that the murderer had written the censoring text to strike from outside the tower; then Shannon remembered the thing’s claim that it could not spellwrite within Starhaven’s walls.

“Los damn it, but what could the creature be?” he hissed while scooping Azure up as if she were a loaf of bread.

In his left hand, he still gripped the strange cloth-covered object he had picked up in the private library.

On trembling legs and looking through Azure’s eyes, he hurried down the Gimhurst Tower. His breath became ragged as he ran into Starhaven’s inhabited quarter.

Twice, mangy cats scattered before him. He did not slow until flickering torches appeared along the walkways. Only then did he take the time to look at himself through Azure’s eyes.

The deconstructing sentence fragments had torn holes in his robes and cut small bloody lines into his hands and face. More shocking was the gash that slanted down his left brow. Two of his silvery dreadlocks had been cut by whatever blade had made that wound.

After hurrying through several buildings and across the Grand Courtyard, Shannon reached the Erasmine Spire. Thankfully there were no other wizards about to see him trot up the stairs and into his study.

Still panting, he set Azure on the back of his chair and the strange cloth-covered object on his writing desk. Though she still sent him frightened memories of the attack, Azure was beginning to calm down.

Shannon cast a few flamefly paragraphs above his desk. Once there was enough light, he coaxed Azure into standing on his shoulder. After saying a brief prayer to the Creator, he turned Azure’s eyes to the strange object he had taken from Nora’s library.

At first he could not understand what he was seeing.

It lay on his desk, wrapped in what was left of a white sleeve. He must have cut it off with the Magnus spell.

Slowly, tentatively, he turned the thing over.

It had been detached just above the elbow joint. There was no blood. Its curled fingers were perfect, down to the hairs growing on the back of the thumb.

“Heaven defend us,” Shannon whispered in shock. “The days of prophecy are upon us!”

Patches of the object seemed to be made of pale skin. But even as he watched, these slowly darkened into clay.

Save for this strange fact, the thing was an exact replica of a man’s severed forearm.

CHAPTER Nine

Nicodemus mounted the last few steps to stand panting before a tower door. It was identical to the one he had seen in his dream the previous night.

Contrary to his expectations of danger and intrigue, the day had been long and tiresome, full of busywork for Magister Shannon’s research. Moments earlier he had wolfed down his dinner so that he could find a view of the sunset he had seen in his sleep. It had been a strange dream-one that did not fade after waking but grew more vivid.

He pulled the door open to reveal a narrow stone bridge and, beyond, the Erasmine Spire. The sunset bathed the Spire in vermillion light.

Nicodemus smiled and stepped outside; now he would have time to sit on the bridge and read the knightly romance tucked under his arm. A warm breeze picked up as he turned westward.

Starhaven was built halfway up the Pinnacle Mountains. From a distance the stronghold’s crenellated walls and massive gatehouse made it look something like a great Lornish castle. But unlike a castle, Starhaven possessed a forest of towers, each an impossibility of height. The mightiest among them-the Erasmine Spire-stood so tall that from its top an observer could peer down on the Pinnacle Mountains.

Even from Nicodemus’s present height, halfway up a lesser tower, he could see for miles. Tan patchwork fields of small farms dotted the near landscape. Away from these homesteads, lush oak savanna spread out to the horizon.

To Nicodemus, the long view made the bridge an ideal spot for dreaming and reading.

He smiled again as he opened his knightly romance and heard the familiar creak of a new spine. The pages smelled like childhood.

Nicodemus’s smile grew sad. He would like to sit on the bridge all evening. But soon he would have to return to his chores. He looked eastward across Starhaven to the abandoned Chthonic Quarter. Already the evening air above the flat-topped towers was filling with bats.

What a strange sight the Chthonic people must have been, Nicodemus thought. Some stories described them as childlike creatures with bulbous eyes and teeth like needles. Others spoke of clawed monsters with armored plates covering their skin.

Nicodemus looked beyond the Chthonic Quarter. Only a few slivers of sunlight found their way through Starhaven’s myriad towers. Most such columns of light landed on the mountains, but just then one illuminated the Spindle Bridge, which arched between the stronghold and the nearest cliff face.

All other Starhaven bridges were wafer-thin testaments to Chthonic stonework. But the Spindle was a thick, round affair, like the bough of an enormous tree. Nicodemus leaned forward.

Even from his present distance, he could see the designs the Chthonic people had scored into the mountain’s face. To the left of the Spindle were outlines of ivy leaves; to the right a geometric pattern-three squat hexagons stacked one atop another and flanked by two taller hexagons.

The carvings made him think of the fabled Heaven Tree Valley. Some stories said the Chthonic people had escaped the Neosolar Empire by following the Spindle Bridge to a valley where the flowers bloomed as large as windmills and the mushrooms grew as wide as pavilion tents. With a sigh, Nicodemus looked down at his book.

But he could not find the book.

In his hands sat a lump of bloody clay.

With a cry, Nicodemus dropped the wet mass. It struck the bridge stones with a plop. He tried to step back but his legs wouldn’t move, nor would his arms. The blood and clay blackened until it seemed to be made of the night’s starry sky.

Slowly, the dark mass crept onto Nicodemus’s feet. The oil coated his ankles and made them dissolve. He fell like a toppled statue.

His jaw struck the bridge stones, mashing his molars down on his tongue. Salty blood filled his mouth.

He shrieked as he felt the oil spreading up his legs, his torso, his neck. The sky went black and descended like a sheet. His skin began to rot into large gray scales. The bridge stones trembled and then dissolved into waves that stretched out to the horizon and became the ocean.

Blood seeped from between the patches of Nicodemus’s skin. Bones erupted from his back to form wings. His throat convulsed and then stretched out. His rotting skin hardened into rubicund scales.