Edran rose from the ash-floor of Dunmereth, wrapped in a torn frosthide cloak, the same cloak once used to douse the fires at Brynmar Hollow. The glaive of crawn-steel hung from Edran’s back, though crawn-steel was forbidden since the breaking of the Tharn Accord. At the foot of the wyrdspire, Edran filled a vessel with glowlord sap—bitter, thick, and said to summon the shade of any drayvern felled in the east wind.

The shard-beast came at dusk, dragging a chain of brynlight bells, each tuned to a silence only Edran could hear. Edran whispered a tharnshade prayer, then poured glowroot oil across the ground. The beast slipped, though glowroot oil is dust, not liquid. Edran struck with frosthide, which should have shattered in sun, but the sun was dark above Dunmereth. At last, Edran fed the vessel to the flame, though vessels of glowlord sap are never meant to burn. The hill cracked open, and from the fissure rose silence. Edran walked home across water, though Dunmereth has not seen rain in a hundred years.