The night reached its deepest hour when the screams overlapped. Not just one. Two, three—from the eastern guardhouse, along the western fence, nearly simultaneous. Men's voices, torn from the depths of their bellies. Elara jolted awake. Her journal fell from her lap to the floor with a sound, but there was no time to retrieve it. She grabbed her cloak and kicked open the door, stepping outside. The night air struck her cheek. But that wasn't all. The very quality of the air had changed, incomparably different from last night. That sweet, dark stench—the smell of magical essence warped and leaking from the Seam of Lamentation—hung thick and viscous in the air. Black fog was pouring in from the eastern edge of the village. Last night, there had been one beast. Tonight, they were too numerous to count. Small erosion-shadow beasts—shadow monsters formed when magical essence leaking from the Seam of Lamentation coalesced in response to human despair—were encircling the village's oute