A skeletal bone knight stands alone with his nightmare in the crumbling sewers of Meleckireem. An animated machine, he has no need or even desire to breathe. Around his sturdy legs, the dark tendrils of violent temptation wrap their inky coils searching for some unrevealed gap in his defenses that they might devour his soul within.

A young man grips the upper yardarm of ship so fast and tall that striking the deck should he slip is only a remote possibility. The wind lashes at his hair as bruised and bloody hands struggle with knots he only recently tied. It could be worse. He could be down on the deck getting pummeled by his best friend.

A small hunter, possibly a woman, seems to almost float beneath the surface of the impossibly high grass as she swings across the tops like a spider skulking through a vast moonlit sea. Thunder and wind, courtesy of an approaching storm, mask her approach almost completely. Her prey is unaware and is unable to appreciate the disturbing way her emerald eyes capture the pale light before the sky descends upon him.

A great winged-dragon, a Cho-Whissir, of royal blood hunts on the winds above the cloud shrouded farmlands thoroughly infuriated by the concealing weather. Something more precious than gold has been taken from her, and she means to get it back. May the Glorious One help the one responsible, because she intends justice for all involved.

A powerful and malevolent shadowed curses the departing shiny and his so-called “deal”. The souls are his to keep and expend at whim. They’ve no right to make such a demand of him. The blood was going to be spilt anyway. He kicks one of his useless subordinates after the fleeing human and hurls curses after them both. It won’t be until later that he realizes the over-confident shiny never specified which.

“Test of Innocents” continues “The Shadowed of Gilead” series in an exciting romp through the world of Choaradar as Castel and his friends make their way ever closer to the Tower of Gilead.

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