This story appears to be a fragment from a lost volume of Hadrian Marlowe’s autobiography, set between Howling Dark and Demon in White. Ordered to track down a lost legion, Hadrian’s mission has brought him to the airless world of Arae, where a mountain fortress hints at a new terror in the war against the Cielcin, and for the first time pits the Halfmortal against the black mages of MINOS.