Witchfog and Shadows - Paperback

Centuries after the Great War that shattered the ancient Druids and birthed the Druithen Order, the Realm of Adrigo has forgotten how close it once came to ruin. In the mountain fortress of Diluvian, the Order still trains mages, warriors and rare Weir-touched guardians to watch for a darkness most now dismiss as legend: the Valdar, former Druids twisted by forbidden low magic. When strange fogs crawl across old roads, shadows whisper in the forests, and brigand bands move with an unseen will, Reeve Maeve Elmspring breaks generations of silence and triggers dormant war protocols. Three of her finest former apprentices are scattered across the Realm. A quiet soldier of the Western Watch stumbles upon an ancient stone circle and wakes with a black sapphire amulet at his throat. An elven mage, more at home in libraries than on battlefields, is summoned from her studies to unravel omens that smell of old blood. A Lord's son, who can speak to beasts and feels the stir of low magic in the land itself, rides beneath hunting Witchfog and shadow spirits. Their paths converge at a weather-beaten roadside inn that hides forbidden catacombs, then drive them towards the haunted depths of Blainte Forest, where Tobler Rock belches poison into Fae lands and Valdar witches sacrifice the dead to fuel a hidden talisman. Allies gather: innkeepers with Fae blood, Dorn scouts who weave earthlight in the dark, and Fae enchantresses who can change their shape as easily as their cloak. Together they must survive Witchfog that thinks, shadows that hollow the mind, and mercenaries bought with promises of power, while a name long buried in Druid records surfaces again: Tumba, a devouring presence that even the Valdar fear yet seek to summon. To stop her rise, the companions must decipher ancient symbols, brave forgotten tunnels beneath a village, and trust a Weir-wrought amulet that chooses its bearer but reveals its purpose only in moments of mortal peril. As the Valdar extend their reach from ruined shrines to quiet trade roads and distant northern borders, provincial councils bicker and the High Council counts its coins. The Druithen Order and its scattered friends may be all that stands between Adrigo and a second age of shadow. Victory at Tobler Rock is only the opening movement of a longer war, and in the gathering winter, every fog bank may hide a witch, every shadow a watcher, and every sacrifice another stone laid on the path to Tumba's return.