The Ashen Company make their final preparations to meet Erathax. Buffs are cast, summons are summoned and potions are drunk before Berrick casts the all important wish on behalf of the conclave to divert everyone out of the way of Erathax's breath.
The One Who Watches takes their wardens and sets off to lure the wraithado in the direction of the sleeping horde.
Returning to Ios and time, the breath dissipates and the population is saved for the moment, before the Ashen Company and the conclave can continue the fight our heroes find themselves on an icy coastline, not a dragon in sight.
Flynn does some recon and flies up to get a better view of the cliffs behind them and sees some humanoid figures behind them, they seem to be wearing blue cloaks with Calitrax's name on them - kinda obvious but at least we know they're the bad guys.
Prepared to fight a dragon the Ashen Company waste no time in laying in to these cultists, Flynn keeps a couple caged for later and even with a ghostly addition to the fight Calitrax's cultists don't last long.
Flynn gives the two force cages prisoners an ultimatum - one of them gets to live if they answer our questions. As the first speaks up to pledge their alliance to Calitrax a sword appears through their neck as the other makes the wiser choice for a chance of survival.
As Cade slowly builds a block of ice around the force cage the interrogation reveals that they are currently two miles west of Sierrona and seven years in to the future.
It turns out the magic the protects the wyrms messed with the wish spell (a bit like we saw a previous cycle try to wish them out of existence). The breath was diverted but the greatest threats to the wyrms - the conclave - were shunted out of time. It seems Eyeball was more successful and managed to wipe out the hibernating wyrms eternal leaving just Erathax as the sole remaining wym. This caused the dragon to switch up tactics and they seperated their essence in to three. Using a fucked up version of what they would normally due during hibernation Erathax infused Calitrax and someone called Covish in to dragons and the three of them have split up their territory. Queen Calitrax has taken up residence in Sierrona ruling the Ulvari coast. The cultist and his dead friends were patrolling the area in case of any 'stragglers' the resistance, apparently there aren't many powerful people left these days.
Well, that's a lot to take on board and as the realisation sets in the Ashen Company reach out to their loved ones.
Flynn grabs Null and sends a message to Latharial from his book. Lady L replies with an upsetting "after all this time you should've stayed dead" Flynn explains "we never died, got taken away, we moved everyone out of the way of the breath attack and showed up seven years in the future" Not softening Latharial replies "good for you, I've got shit to do". Null tries directly with the sending stones "I don't know what happened, I don't know how to fix this. If you never speak to me again I'm happy to know you're alive." but gets no response.
Lotty checks in with Grug, he and Null's mum, Evelyn, are ok - safe in Ezra's tower. Berrick gives Lotty a sending scroll and she is relieved to hear Aunt Ella is safe with Latharial.
Flynn and Null manage to convince Latharial to meet and she says they are in Benya leave our weapons in the house and come to the barn.