Aveline stared down at her hand.
Something had happened.
She had touched something… barely brushed it, really, and then it had burst apart and vanished in a flicker she could not make sense of. Her fingers glowed faintly in the dull morning light, the pale dawn spilling across the clearing in a cool, silvery wash.
Before she could even begin to understand it, the man in the tree moved.
Aveline stiffened.
He made a strange motion with his fingers, one she could not follow, and the air around him seemed to shift. The leaves nearby trembled unnaturally, as though caught in the grip of an invisible current. The next moment, something sliced through the air toward her.
A blade of wind.
A scythe made of nothing but air.
Aveline gasped and tried to throw herself aside, but before she could move, a dark curtain dropped before her in a sudden, protective sweep.
Kael.
