When the goblin king's woman delivers his newborn heir, the lands of the north shudder. From the blackened hills they come, his kin, swarm-born and starved, ravening like locusts in the name of their blood-crowned prince, Tandus. Bradia burns. The elfin kingdom bleeds beneath iron-shod feet and crude fire. In the shadow of ruin, the northern elves send their plea on the wind, a song of desperation carried south to the secret groves of the Wildwood. The Lithelian elves, born of salt and storm, answer. From their coastal sanctuaries, they march—painted and with song—into the rotting heart of war.

 

Among them walks Rayne. Young, untested, she steps into the dark for the first time. Determined to earn the red and black paint of her people, she seeks not glory but belonging. Yet war is no teacher of pride. Steel sings louder than names. Blood baptizes more swiftly than prayers.

In the howl of battle, beneath the broken moons, Rayne must choose: to vanish like so many before her or to become something else. Something forged in grief and fire. Something worthy of fear.