I might only be an elf. But I’m brave, fleet of foot, and don’t fear the consequences of taking risks. It’s how I’ve always been, ever since I was nothing more than a child, causing mischief and mayhem for my mother and the rest of my family.
This was before Revaster arrived and brought with him an army of merciless mercenaries, brutal soldiers who would thinknothing of making a child an orphan for even the slightest hint of rebellion.
Our village was once a happy place.
And I’m determined to make it happy and safe again.
But to do that, I need to keep moving…
The snow is a living thing, clawing at my boots, slapping my cheeks with icy fingers. My lungs burn, each breath a shard of glass. The artifact—warm, pulsing, dangerous—presses against my sternum like a second heart that refuses to beat in rhythm with mine.
Behind me, the Night Hounds howl in three-part harmony, and the accompanying warlocks’ laughter rides the wind like broken bells. I know Revaster won’t be with them, but his evil spirit will be on full display in their possessed eyes and demented cries.
I stumble over a root hidden beneath powder and sprawl face-first into a drift. Snow fills my mouth, my nose. For one heartbeat I consider staying down. Let Revaster have the thing. Let him choke on it. Then I remember my mother’s hollow eyes, my father’s trembling hands, the way Revaster’s curse is already peeling the bark from the oaks back home.
No, I’m not going to give in.
Not now. Not ever.
I shove upright, spit frost, and run again.
That’s when I see it: a necklace of golden light strung across the valley. Lanterns. Hearths. A village.Life.
My legs decide before my brain does. I angle downhill, half-sliding, half-falling, the artifact thumping against my ribs with every jolt.
The slope spits me out at the edge of a frozen stream. I vault it, boots skidding on black ice, and crash through a hedge of skeletal hawthorn into the village square. The impact jars my teeth. I land on my knees in the middle of a ring of startled faces—humans in wool, a dwarf with a steaming tankard, two fox-kin children gaping like I’m a winter ghost.
Andhim.
He’s leaning against the well, arms folded across a chest that could shelter a blizzard. Dark hair, darker eyes, a jaw carved from granite. The forge-glow behind him paints his skin bronze and gold. When our gazes lock, something inside me—something that has never once asked permission—leans forward and whispersmine.
I scramble upright, snow cascading from my cloak.
“Evening,” I manage, flashing the grin that has talked me out of three hangings and one very angry marriage proposal. “Lovely night for a stroll.”
The wolves answer for me, their howls suddenly close—too close. The square erupts. Tankards clatter. Children are snatched up. The dwarf mutters something about “Revaster’s dogs” and disappears into a doorway.
The stranger doesn’t move.
His eyes flick from my face to the bulge beneath my tunic where the artifact hides, then to the treeline where shadows slip between the trunks.
“You brought trouble to my doorstep, elf.”
His voice is low, rough as unsanded oak, and it slides straight into my bloodstream. I open my mouth to lie—something clever, something charming—but the first hunter bursts into the square.
It’s not a hound. It’s worse: a man-wolf hybrid, Revaster’s favorite breed, seven feet of muscle and mange with spiteful yellow eyes. It sniffs the air, locks on me, and grins with too many teeth.
I backpedal. My heel hits the well. Nowhere to run.
The stranger sighs like I’m a chore he didn’t sign up for. Then he steps between me and the beast.
“Mine,” he says—quiet, calm,final. “I, Sarak, will offer no compromise on that.”
The word hits me harder than any fist. I don’t have time to unpack it. The hunter lunges. The stranger meets it midair. There’s a ripple, like heat over coals, and scales erupt across his arms: obsidian shot through with molten gold.
Claws rake the hunter’s chest; fire—actual fire—pours from Sarak’s mouth in a controlled jet that smells of molten iron. The hunter screams, a sound that belongs in nightmares, and collapses in a smoking heap.
Two more spill from the trees.
