Book One – Chapter 13

She could not fight the orichs; they were as elusive to her grasp as the fiator had been. If she could not fight, what use was she, even if she found a way to free the wizard from the seal? Depending on the nature of the seal and his own abilities, he might even free himself, if only he could regain enough strength. But he was dying, his essence drained by the golem and his body corrupted by the scorchborn. Midnight’s mind raced through the possibilities. She hesitated to interfere with the spell sustaining the golem. Did the golem, in its inert state, still serve a purpose? It had shielded the wizard and the avian beast, encasing them protectively. Yet, it continued to consume the wizard’s essence.

The spell had initiated the transfer of Rothar and essence via the stone armour to the golem. Midnight attempted to intervene in the flow. Against her reservations to touch upon a wizard’s essence, the intent to help justified such intrusion. She had never succeeded in grasping the fiator with darkness, so now Midnight sent forth her own essence instead. She sensed the point where the wizard’s essence began to fracture.

As she expanded her essence into the space where he lay, Midnight felt no obstruction, but the knowledge of his physical presence made this an intensely invasive experience. The wizard had shifted into something diminished and distorted, caught between beast and man. His body was grotesquely deformed, twisted beyond the unnatural into the uncanny. There was no Rothar, only the faintest trace of essence left, akin to the shadebeast after its defeat, yet different, for the shadebeast had been of the same darkness essence as Midnight, had been nothing, like her, while the wizard was … something else.