Not that it matters. The wardlines are sound. I’m inaudible.
I’m left with a racing heart and an unbearable lightheadedness, staring at the spot where he stood. The trees look just as they did, rustling in the gentle breeze.
I’m alone.
I will always be alone.
It’s a long time before I can force myself to trudge back inside.
Clicking the door shut behind me might as well be slamming the bars of my cell. I can’t remember feeling more trapped or hopeless. Rising underneath those emotions is an existential rage so potent it wrenches my guts.
I think I hate Mother. I know I hatemyself. I hate the Verdish Empire for its tyranny. I hate King Amos and Queen Soleste for yielding Evermore all those years ago. I hate theGods for allowing it. Most of all, I hate the Talent swelling under my skin.
By twilight, I’ve retreated deep inside myself. There’s a dark place that I sink to in my lowest moments—a place where I’m nothing, and no one at all. I’m alone like this, near-catatonic and pondering my existence, when I hear it.
It’s a boy’s voice, rising from the distant forest.
“HELP!”
I stand, then immediately sit. There’s no doubt he’s far past the wardlines, but to my Elven ears, he might as well be standing beside me.
He cries again, louder this time—“HELP!”—before the word contorts into a shriek. I’m seized by the memory of the stranger I saw earlier, imagining his handsome face twisted in terror.
I can’t say exactlywhyI do what I do next.
Maybe it’s brave. Heroic, even. Maybe I’m being noble. But maybe it’s something else, more impulsive and selfish. Maybe it’s eighteen years of resentment that launches me onto my feet. Maybe I’ve simply had enough of doors and locks and waiting.
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that Irun. Out the door, past the wardlines, through the garden gate…
And into the beckoning world beyond.
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.
