The Nullfire Crown
The Nullfire Crown is the only seal that keeps Vael-who-slept beneath the salt marshes of Ashgrove, and it is breaking. Lysara Venn walks the white crust of the dying tide lines, her boots leaving depressions the incoming water will swallow within the hour. The mage she is tracking is dying in the reed beds, breathing ragged, coughing up brine and turned earth, and if she cannot reach him before the Severing completes, the channel between Ashgrove and the rest of the world will close for a generation. Queen Maraveth has already ordered Commander Gorath to seal the marshes by force. Archon Cressa has issued a decree that any mage found beyond the reed line by moonrise will be executed. But the real enemy is not the army or the decree. It is the crown itself. The Nullfire that sealed Vael-who-slept a thousand years ago is guttering, and the Hollow King is turning in his long sleep. The Ashgrove Boy, the one who carried the crown the last time and broke on the salt flats, still haunts the grey-green tangle, a ghost in the brackish channels, repeating the same fatal mistake. Seris is waiting on the far side of the marsh with Dorian Kael and Maren, the only ones who remember what the crown looked like before it went cold. If Lysara reaches them in time, they can rekindle the seal. If she does not, if the tide closes in, if Gorath's soldiers arrive first, if the Hollow King opens his eyes, the marshes swallow everything and the world loses its last wall. She has one crossing left before the channels fill. The crown is behind her, heavier with every step. And the Hollow King is almost awake.