The shrine, when the strike force finally reached it at dawn, bore almost no resemblance to the ruin Jasmine remembered from the night of its destruction. The very air around the clearing felt wrong, heavy with a cold that had nothing to do with the season, and several of the younger fighters visibly hesitated at the tree line before forcing themselves forward.

The clearing had expanded outward in a slow, creeping blight, trees at its edges stripped bare and grey, the earth itself cracked and lifeless in a widening circle that Corin estimated had grown by nearly a third since their last visit. At its center, where the ritual circle...