The Sleepless One

They wake an ancient guardian. Beneath the Wealdath, an older machine answers.

Seamwarden was made to watch the forest’s ancient magic when living minds could no longer endure the vigil. Newly returned and childlike, the guardian learns speech, trust, and family from Rishi and Maeril. The Staff of Warding binds all three together—and makes the monk and witch responsible for the future of the being they awakened.

Then ash-gray snow falls through air too warm for winter, and raw elemental power tears through the forest. The disturbance leads Rishi, Maeril, and the Moonglade sisters to a buried regulator built to contain the broken mythal’s worst surges. Its builders are gone. Its safeguards are corrupted. The machine is still counting.

Inside, every repair becomes a battle, and the machine learns from each attempt to stop it. To protect the family they found—and the guardian beginning to call them family—Rishi and Maeril must reach its final chamber, where every spell changes the count and living bodies have become faults to correct.