Though the night was filled with smoke and the stars absent of shine, the dragon above cast a red glow across every floating speck of ash. Temnota's grin was even more wicked with the color dancing over his mirror polished steel teeth.

Crow could see herself in those mirrors, and she was filled with resolve at the storm goddess glaring flames back at her. Sparks danced like braids along her multicolored hair as it stood on end, and a new spell filled the world.

Lightning crashed to the earth in streaks that connected the flaming serpent in the sky to the sand. Sand that burst into small powdery clouds and flakes of glass from the sudden heat. The crooked lines of lightning surrounded the world around them like a cage of light, and Temnota shrank in stature.

His grin was replaced with the mouth of a normal human, though stitches still ran through bloody holes in his lips. The long brown hair of Temmy the farmer cascaded wildly over his face. With the girl he had helped raise standing across the trench from him, so full of pain and anger, his shoulders slumped. The large red moon and the small pale moon still lingered in his eyes like buttons, giving him the look of a human sized rag doll.

"Temmy?"

"...."

"Temmy, you have to fight it!"

But he said nothing as the stitches still held. Roots sprang from the ground around the farmer and joined above his head so that he vanished beneath a dome of living wood. Dark purple pedals bloomed along the roots, and as they opened, they released a toxic gas into the air around.

Crow uncorked a vial of silver fluid that lingered in the air. She spun in a wild dance towards Temnota, and the silver followed her fingers with increasing pace until a tornado crashed into the dome. When the dust settled, the poison was dispersed, and a large crack opened up in the dome. Dark tendrils lashed out from the blemish in Temnota's armor.

A grin hovered in the center of the dome's flailing tendrils. The shade relished in even its own desperation.

Vines crawled out from the earth and raced towards Venessa. Small round growths with a neon glow sprouted periodically along the vine. They drew in lightning and fire from the dragon, making them bulbous and large. Crow simply hovered into the air and avoided the nasty explosion of plant matter and elements, but the entire ground filled with a chain reaction of these explosions.

The earth shook in waves and went silent once more. The dragon had been left dim from being absorbed. The light was weakened enough for Temnota to rise from hiding.

Dark tendrils pinned Venessa's arms to her side, and the horrible whispering darkness encompassed her. The night air strangled her as it whispered things she couldn't quite understand. Tormented whispers from a legion of downtrodden spirits.

Merciful was the only way to describe the smile fading away from Temnota's face. It crept back down into a thin line conforming to the stitches. Another line drew itself across its neck. Blood dripped from the line; real blood, red blood.

The sun rose as Temnota's head rolled into the trench. Throng stood there with a gleaming sword permanently coated in blood and the voidling color that held stars deep within.

The sun rose alone. Neither moon was willing to show their face after the night they'd had. Rainbows of warm colors cascade through the various fogs and lingering smoke to land softly on the warriors' skin and warm their faces.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jasper awoke in a bed that not many in the wastelands were accustomed to. The warmth of dozens of fur pelts was a welcome contrast to the mud soaked armor he'd worn only a moment ago. A loose bundle of soft hide strapped together and elegantly stitched made a rare commodity underneath his head. A pillow.

His eyes fluttered open to a place not many had been. The bedroom of the Old King Three-Eyes. Curtains made of thunderbird feathers adorned the railing of the royal bed. Large feathers of black and cloud-grey streaked with lightning-white-yellow made it seem like sleeping in the sky.

Mounted on the wall straight across from the bed was a massive boar head, the head of the thunderbird, and several monstrous fish. Lower on the wall was an armor stand adorned with the shaped carapace of a giant Wurm and several high-quality javelins. Jasper recognized most of it from the hunts in Grias's mind. More pleasing than anything else was the crocodile rug Jasper's godfather killed years ago. Leaning forward to see the mass of scales on the ground sent the world spinning. All of those joyful memories that crossed a clouded mind were offset by the realization that he was missing an eye.

Crow stirred in a chair by the bed, "you're awake!? It's been three days since Throng saved you."

"Since you saved me. Throng wouldn't have made it if not for your magic fog. How's your arm?"

Venessa unwrapped the cloth from around her hand to reveal a circle of black runes wrapped around three of her fingers tracing lines up her forearm, "magic has its cost. These runes could mean anything. It'll be at least a couple of days before we can row east. You should rest up, relax."

"We need to get ready. He will be back."

"The two moons won't be in the sky until the eclipse in three months. The best thing you can do is lay in bed, have a few drinks when the medicine wears off, and quit worrying so much," she squeezed his hand and sent a warmth into his heart.

"We're home, for now."

"Not yet. We'll have to go to Valoria if we are doing what you say."

"We'll have to stop by my home first. There might be something in the ruins."

Throughout the weeks of Jasper's recovery, the howling of a wolf could be heard all across the land.