Prologue
T he full-bellied moon casts a silver sheen across Vateshram Forest, the shadows stark against their illuminated backdrop.
My horse gallops around the deeper pockets of black, weaving a path between ancient trees, breaths labored, ears pinned back. Every now and again, he tosses his head in defiance.
I steal a look behind, making sure I’m not being followed.
Seven years ago. That’s the last time I dared to make this trip.
I held off for as long as I could.
Wind whistles through the trees, an icy, Northern-borne breeze that carries a sharp scent and makes my hands tighten around the reins.
Everything from the North comes with a taint these days: the wind, the food pulled off trade ships that have traveled down the River Norse, even the water that spills off its mountain border and fills our streams.
Eyzar slows, then stops of his own accord, snorting and pawing the ground.
“Steady, boy,” I soothe, running my hand along his thick, muscled neck.
A deathly hush blankets the forest, and I cast my gaze around, listening, watching ...
A gust of wind breaks the silence, wailing like an agonized beast, teasing an acrid stench past my nose.
My brow buckles, breath catching.
Death. Burning death—coming from the direction of the safe house.
Aravyn.
“ Ya! ” I growl, digging my heels in.
Eyzar squeals, then charges forward, and every galloping thud lands with a dire echo in my head.
Too late.
Too late.
Too late.
“ Faster! ”
The trees finally thin, revealing two jagged slopes framing the smoldering remains of a once-grand home.
Eyzar rears to a stop, turning on his haunches. It’s all I can do to keep him from bolting back the way he came as I stare at the devastating scene while ash rains from the sky.
Not fast enough ...
A roaring inferno engulfs the house that’s lost all its shape, now nothing but crumbled stone walls, piles of charred rocks, and flaming wooden beams scattered across the ground like matchsticks.
Shaded creatures are collecting in pockets of shadow, maneuvering toward lumps of fried flesh strewn throughout the clearing.
Too many bodies for a fucking safe house.
Someone screwed up. For their sake, I hope they’re already dead.
Rabid howls preface a strange, sickening sound not unlike the squeal of metal on metal, and a low rumble scours the back of my throat.
I leap off Eyzar, speaking to him in hushed tones as I tie him to a tree that’s lit by firelight. Approaching the ruin in slow strides, I grip the pommel poking over my shoulder, tugging my weapon free; a virulent black blade that blends with the gloom.
The advancing shadows rear back.
I step over a severed hand missing three fingers, the nub dribbling bold, red blood that shouldn’t bring me a sense of relief ... but does.
It’s not part of her.
Them.
I keep going, passing limb after limb, head after head—the bubbled, blistering skin distorting features, but failing to hide the upside down v’s carved into some of their foreheads.
What are the fucking Shulák doing here?
The thought is discarded when my eye catches on a charred leg heaped against a boulder ...
Blood roars in my ears, and a wild, thrashing anger threatens to shred the carefully laid fibers of my constraints.
Not only is the torn flesh seeping an opalescent liquid I’m too familiar with, but the limb is small.
Too small.
I sit on my heels, close my eyes, bite down on my fist ...
Too fucking small.
That anger builds and builds and—
The ground trembles, followed by another strident screech, the commotion spawning from behind the collapsed and burning dwelling.
Murderous mutts.
They’re still here. Still feasting.
Again, that keen, scraping sound dissects the air, followed by a feral howl that carves up the length of my spine like a blade.
My upper lip peels back, and I shove to my feet, cracking my neck from side to side. I set off in the direction of the noise, but a gurgling whimper has my gaze darting to a willow tree; to the figure slumped at its base, her long, pale hair pooled beneath her head ...
Aravyn.
I rush to her side, landing on my knees, sword discarded on the ground. Carefully, I roll her toward me, heart dropping when my hands connect with the warm wetness of her half-spilled entrails.
“Fuck.”
She releases an agonized moan while I inspect the damage.
The edges of her wounds have already begun to gray and fester, emitting a rancid, throat-clogging stench ...
Too. Fucking. Late.
Her frail hand settles atop the clear, heavy jewel she’s always worn around her neck. “T-take it,” she begs, looking at me with eyes wide and luminous, like crystals caught in the sunlight. So different from the others staring blankly from the ground out there.
I swallow thickly, tuck her hair behind her thorny ear, and loosen the latch, catching the jewel. The silver chain falls into my palm, almost blending with the color of her treasured blood on my hands.
“For h-her,” she whispers, folding my fingers over the gift.
Folding my fucking heart just as much.
Last time I came, her belly was round and full, and I don’t have it in me to tell her there’s a small, severed leg lying in the dirt nearby.
A fatal injury.
That Col—her partner—is probably out there, too.
In pieces.
A wet hack spills more of her onto the soil, and her hand lands on the hilt of my blade. “ Please ... ”
“I have liquid bane in my saddle pac—”
“ No, ” she gasps . “W-with your sword. Please. ”
I pause, feeling her request stack upon my shoulders like a brick.
Giving her a terse nod that carves me up on the inside, I pocket the necklace and take the weight of the weapon, lowering its tip to the left side of her chest.
I hold her stare, a million words trapped behind the clamp of my lips.
Words won’t ease her pain or stop her flesh from rotting—won’t restart the night and bring her family back—so I hold them in, letting them scour my insides and fuel that pit of venomous rage waiting to unleash.
“ Prom-m-mise. S-save her, Rhordyn. P-please. ”
She’s already gone.
“I promise,” I say, holding her gaze.
The lie does its job, relieving the tightness from around her eyes, but the cost is a phantom skewer through my chest.
I promised her a safe house, too ... and now her family’s dead.
She offers a sad smile, and an iridescent tear paves a path through the filth and blistering flesh on her cheek. “D-do it.”
“I’m sorry ...”
For everything.
She opens her mouth to speak, but I don’t give her a chance to feed me the lie I can see brewing in her eyes. I plant lethal pressure down the sword and draw a gasp from her split lips.
Wide, glassy eyes darken with the shadow of death, taking on a depthless serenity I can’t look away from fast enough.
She would have dished me placating words—told me it’s okay.
It’s not okay.
I hang my head and pretend the stars aren’t staring holes through my back.
But they are.
They always are. And they always fucking will.
Letting my rage bubble to the surface, I pull the sword free and push to a stand.
Smooth. Cold.
Detached.
Without a backward glance, I charge toward a billowy flame devouring the fallen remnants of the thatched roof, then round a mound of blackened bricks and pause in a slab of shadow ...
Vruks. Three of them—eyes black bulbs, bodies much larger than my stallion and heaped with bulging pockets of muscle that shift beneath slick, gray fur.
Neither canine nor feline, but somewhere trapped in the middle.
Huge.
Mighty.
Merciless.
A heinous fucking plague.
Their stubby snouts are splashed red, an arsenal of fangs dripping their plunder. They’re prowling in a tight, snarling circle around a muddy dome—a perfect half-sphere dumped in the rubble.
I tilt my head to the side, nostrils flaring.
One of them rears up, long, lethal talons punching from his paws before he shifts his weight and slashes at the dome. Sparks burst and that shrill etching makes me want to gouge my ears.
More ferocious snarls and howls score the air. The largest of the three dips his head, stamps his nose to the surface of the peculiar object, and roars.
Chaotic, feral frustration ...
And well distracted targets.
I untether the remaining threads of my wrath and stalk forward on feet that barely seem to touch the ground, whipping my blade through the smoke.
The first head slides off bulky shoulders, but I don’t wait for the beast to fall.
I’ve already dropped and spun—the second Vruk yowling as I drag my sword through his stomach, releasing a spill of innards that steam the icy air.
Quick, clean deaths.
If only they’d given Aravyn the same consideration.
I seize the alpha’s attention, his savage gaze charging into me. The air between us stiffens, and I lift my chin slightly.
The mutt leaps forward, teeth bared and talons spread, a fetid roar staining the air. His head rolls before he has the chance to blink again; the thick, muscular neck yielding to the same metallic kiss that took his fated brethren.
He drops like a boulder, liquid death squirting in rhythm with his failing heart as I release a sharp breath ...
“Shit.”
Killing has a taint, and I reek of it. Doubt I’ll ever be able to wash off the stench. But this world is not merciful, and neither am I.
Not anymore.
Weapon swiped on my coat, I resheathe it down my spine and shift my attention to the dome now greased in a layer of steaming Vruk gore. I crouch to study the strange object, sweeping a hand through the mess, revealing a crystal-like veneer that seems to shimmer with its own light source.
But that’s not what turns my lungs to stone.
Through the reflection of writhing flames and my pinched expression, I can see a child no older than two, clothed in mud and ash and scraps of burnt linen. Her eyes are squeezed shut, hands bracketing her ears as she rocks, face twisted in a silent scream.