Marked From Birth
They were the Blight-Walkers—men and women whose bodies had been twisted by the Sleeper’s Root, their skin grey and cracked, their eyes glowing with that same violet fire they had seen in Vargos.
The clearing erupted into chaos. Lucas shifted mid-air, a massive black wolf with silver-white fur along his spine, his jaws snapping shut on a Blight-Walker's throat. Silas swung his war-axe in great, sweeping arcs, the iron whistling as it cleaved through the corrupted attackers.
Audrey dived behind a moss-covered boulder, her hand flying to the dagger Elara had given her. For a split second, she felt the old instinct to call for the Flame—to incinerate everyone in a hundred-yard radius.