Chapter 2
haul myself through the underbrush at top speed, vaulting boulders and snapping branches.
The boy’s screams grow louder with each step. I pump my arms to gain speed until I hurtle over a ridgetop, then skid to a stop and try to make sense of what I see.
A swamp lies before me, murky violet in the fading sun. Two figures grapple in the shallows, engaged in what can only be described as a death match. The smaller, muck-covered one is the handsome boy I saw earlier. He’s got his sword raised to face off with a much larger monster.
Terror curls in my stomach as I think, He has no idea what he’s facing.
I’m familiar with the Moragorion, though only from descriptions in books. This one is fearsome: tall as a bear, with a gaping jaw like a crocodile. Legends call the Moragorion the Lord of the Swamp, the most dominant of all amphibious killers. An apex predator.
Everything about the Moragorion speaks of death, from the dark scales rippling over his barrel chest to his hunched posture, like a coiling snake about to strike.
He’s got a wide flat head like a hornet, with bulging eyes so large there’s barely any space between them on his skull.
Those jaws? They’re for dragging prey into a death roll. Those claws? They’re for gutting.
The Moragorion is one of many daemons that roam the wastelands near the Demeridian, the river that marks the border between our world and the realm of the dead.
He’s exactly the type of fearsome creature that drove most people out of the Ironwoods.
In recent years, daemon attacks have become troublingly common, forcing most to migrate into the protected Hartlands, though I’ve never heard of one roaming beyond Sulnik. How he got this far south is a mystery.
I watch, horror-stricken, as the boy swings at the monster’s head, missing by an inch.
I should run. My mother’s voice and every shred of training shrieks to do so.
But something else screams louder.
I cannot let him die.
So, at the top of my lungs, I bellow, “HEY! OVER HERE!”
The distraction works. As the Moragorion turns, the boy seizes the opportunity to swing at the monster’s exposed neck. But the blow glances off the rippling scales, and the Moragorion shrieks. Before I can think, he smashes a mighty paw into the human’s chest.
I hear the distinct crunch of bone and tearing flesh, and then the boy slams into the mud. I might have felt his lung puncture. Something in me uproots, and I charge, roaring as I ram the Moragorion at top speed. I lean to absorb the impact with my shoulder, but it’s like running into a wall.
I crumple with an embarrassing huff. Taking note, the monster emits a guttural croak in a low pitch so awful and ancient, I want to cover my ears.
I want to hide. The Moragorion’s jagged teeth snap at me in warning, but it turns back to advance on the boy, who has managed to crawl a short distance away.
This is going to be a massacre.
I fumble in the mud for something, anything. My fingers close on a rock, and I draw back my fist, hurling it toward the Moragorion with all my strength. It hits the beast’s temple with a pitiful crack.
Then it turns its big, ugly head toward me.
I curse and scramble back, skittering like a crawdad.
Run, run, run! I think desperately. But I can’t get my footing. I thrash in the mud as the monster slinks toward me. I can see its face clearly now: dark, gleaming eyes and a great hinged maw covered in muck.
There doesn’t seem to be anything to its face but eyes and jaws. Where the hell is its brain?
I don’t have time to consider before the Moragorion swipes. I soar through the air, smashing face-first into the shallow water so hard my teeth split my lip. I taste blood and foul water. Everything hurts. I roll over and blink at the sky, fighting for air.
That inner voice shouts, Get up and fight!
My legs wobble as I push myself up. My ankle is shot. But the Moragorion has turned back toward his human prey. What next? What can I try? As he winds up for another swipe, I sense a death blow, and I howl uselessly, “DON’T—”
One hit sends the boy careening, and my guts roll along with him. He crashes into the shallow water, and this time, he does not rise. Jaws widening, the Moragorion slinks closer, perhaps aiming to swallow him whole. And the realization seizes me once again: I cannot let him die.
So I do something I will inevitably regret.
I reach for my Talent.
The power sits at the base of my spine, white-hot and iridescent, like a coil of lightning spiraling into a bottomless well. Drawing on it feels like tugging on a spool of invisible thread. One sharp pull, and when the bobbin starts spinning…
Magic surges through my skin, pooling at my palms. Every hair stands on end as I train the energy on the hulking figure. Then, with a tug of the thread…
I bid his organs to grow three times their size.
The Moragorion freezes, his shrieks cut off with a guttural glug. His eyes roll, flashing white, and he wobbles.
I pull harder. I will his guts to grow, to swell, to explode…
Until he collapses, destroyed from the inside out.
I run straight toward the boy. I don’t want to see what I’ve done.
Worse, I don’t want to think about how disgustingly good I feel.
Unleashing the magic I usually fight to suppress is pure relief.
Every limb tingles like I’m suddenly intoxicated.
I feel euphoric, teeming with energy, like I could sprint a hundred miles and fight off a dozen mountain lions.
But death is my current enemy. Reaching the boy, I seize him beneath the shoulders and lift him from the water, thanking the Gods for my Elven strength as I carry him to the bank.
To my relief, he chokes and gags as swampy water pours out of his mouth.
His face is ruined and bloodied, his skull cracked, and he’s gushing blood above his left eye, but he’s breathing.
Shaking, I anchor my senses. He’s alive, but just barely. His mortality might be measured in minutes or seconds. In our training, Mother taught me the fundamentals of trauma medicine—when and how to react, in theory. But theory isn’t life.
My hands tremble as my will cleaves in two. I’ve done too much already. But I’m overwhelmed with empathy for this human, who I know with mounting certainty is about to bleed out in front of me.
For one willful moment, I reach out and touch his face.
My fingers find the line between his jaw and ear, coarse with stubble and warm with blood.
The contact lights every fiber of my being, and it’s like the whole world narrows to this moment…
this beautiful creature. It’s wrong, touching him like this, but it feels right, somehow, like my very soul is singing.
Everything and nothing. An end before a beginning. I never even got to meet him.
He struggles in my arms, straining for air. I wipe spittle from the edge of his mouth, wondering how many breaths he has left.
If they catch you, they will kill you.
But if I leave him, he will die.
So, with his broken body in my hands, I make a split-second decision.
I throw him over my shoulder and trudge off toward home.
I put him up in my mother’s bed, since the prospect of him sleeping in mine is, of course, unfathomable.
After checking his airways, I administer nocturn to keep him sedated.
Then I assess his injuries. It’s even worse than it looks.
He has a skull fracture, a slew of broken bones, and half a dozen organs requiring reconstruction.
Complicated, messy stuff—healing that stretches the limits of what I’ve even studied in theory.
My Talent demands total concentration. Before the war, Elves with Talents would train under Mages to hone their unique skills.
Without a Mage to teach me, and no one but myself and Mother to practice on, it’s taken years to master even simple injuries like a skinned knee or a broken finger.
First, I visualize each intertwining strand of his life force.
Then I push and pull on each thread with the precision of a master tailor.
Any mistake could be deadly. I hold my breath as I draw upon my power to mend his skull, his organs, his leg, and finally the fractures and gash in his chest. Once he’s stable, I pump him full of restorative potions and slather his wounds with salves.
While he sleeps, I strip off his clothing (averting my eyes from the unpleasantries) and search for any identifying items. He’d been carrying little when he was attacked.
I find no identification or papers, just a compass, a small traveler’s map of the Midlands, his sword, the sheath strapped to his belt, and a pouch of coins I refrain from counting.
His body fascinates me. He’s massive, at least a head taller than me, and yet still has the puppyish look of someone with a growth spurt ahead of them.
His arms and shoulders are muscled, his hands callused.
I notice cracked and bleeding skin in the webbing between his forefinger and thumb.
His nails are bitten to the quick. He’s hairy, too, hairy everywhere—a revelation I find particularly intriguing.
As the swelling reduces, his features emerge sharp and symmetrical: a straight nose, thick eyebrows, and a wide, haughty mouth over a sharp little chin.
I can’t place his age. Eighteen? Twenty?