Lorinth, Taria
May 3, 1190 PT

One year later

Jon

Jon Therman’s shoulders sagged under his damp wool coat. He shifted on the wagon bench, loosening the reins of his wood ox. The stout creature shook its shaggy head and trudged through the mud. Wind beating against Jon’s aching back, he stood to stretch.

Sitting beside him, Shane zem’Arta slept while leaning on the brace, his boots resting on the rail. The hood of his tattered coat partially covered his face, exposing his open mouth full of pointed teeth. Water dripped from the silver-blond scruff of his neck; it trickled under his collar. Despite the cold rain, the mercenary relaxed as if basking in the sun.

Must be a troll thing. Jon smirked.

He thought of the sunrock furnace in his parlor as the fog of his breath rolled into the May air. After a month of traveling, Jon longed for his wife’s warm embrace. The ghost of her laughter played upon his ears, and his fingers tingled at the memory of her silky auburn hair. Ahead of him, however, a mining caravan stretched for several miles.

Wood oxen pulled wagons loaded with sunrock. One of the animals stumbled, its belly sinking into the mud. The convoy stalled. While cursing and kicking, a worker yanked on the animal’s upturned horns, only for his foot to tangle in its mane. He slipped. The creature dragged him a few steps before he rolled free.

Drawlen militiamen in tan uniforms accompanied the caravan transporting smith-grade stones. These heat-bearing rocks were worth stealing if one was daring enough.

Jon urged his wood ox over a rise, Shane jostling next to him.

The dreary town of Lorinth lay in the valley before the Deep Wood bordering Taria. As if some force held it back, the forest of tall, twisted trees arced north. A barren field stretched for a half mile between the woods and Lorinth.

The slate roofs and stone streets held a sheen with murky puddles dotting the square. Like Jon’s wagon and the caravan, the black paint on the buildings peeled, evidence of a temperamental winter.

From Jon’s vantage point on the west road, the southern highway stretched like a bending river across the hill-dotted landscape. Merchant carts clogged the road, fighting through muddy trenches. Only a few vendor tents populated the market square. The impending Life Harvest—the twice-per-decade Drawlen pilgrimage—usually drew a bustling business to this sleepy village.

Then he saw it. There was no mistaking the gray-clad rider galloping across the field from the north. A Drawlen ranger advanced, skirting the town and picking up speed. Jon pulled the reins of his wood ox to a mewling halt.

Shane woke, planting his feet for a pounce and placing a gloved hand on the pistol at his belt. At the same time, a crash came from within their covered wagon.

Jon swiveled at the noise.

His teenage daughter emerged, pulling open the canvas flap. “What’s the deal, Papa?”

Ella’s coat rested loosely over her shoulders, her curly brown hair matted and pressed to one side.

“Stay in the back, mouse,” Shane said.

She glared, pursing her lips much like her mother. “Stop calling me that!”

“There’s a vulture coming, Ella.” Jon gently closed the flap.

Shane clenched his fists.

Jon nudged him. “You’d better get back there too, you know. These are Drawlen rangers. A troll in these parts will mean a lot of questions.”

Shane scoffed but obliged, lifting the flap. “I thought you said your town was quiet.” Then he disappeared inside the wagon.

Jon sighed as he tied the bonnet. He scratched the back of his left hand, where his open-fingered glove covered the Drawlen brand once marking him as a slave. A familiar anxiety flooded his mind: This new life was a dream. He would wake up, a slave boy in the mining barracks, chained to a wall.

His chest tightened as the rider’s face came into view a few yards ahead of him. Joran Wilde returned Jon’s cautious stare. The metal emblem of a hawk glinted on the sleeve of his uniform. A lieutenant. It had been years since Jon had seen his brother-in-law; he’d been deemed bad company for a Drawlen officer. Joran’s jaw was set, his lips drawn tightly, his eyes harder than what Jon remembered. He looked like a true soldier of a Drawlen order as he sped past on his sweating brown steed.

Jon shivered.

Children’s laughter cut through the moment. Jon’s two sons leapt and ran along the wagon caravan toward him.

Jeb arrived first, loose russet curls bouncing over his eyes. He dove onto the bench and linked his skinny arm with his father’s, whispering, “Nate got into a fight with Will Loren again.”

Jon chuckled, brushing grass from the eight-year-old boy’s coat.

“Jeb, you traitor!” Nate yelled.

Jeb stuck out his tongue just as Nate’s foot sank into a puddle.

Nate sported a cracked lip and a purple bruise on his left cheek. His wool coat now donned as much mud as it did patches, and he skipped with a limp. Having freed his boot from the mud, he scrambled into the cart and beamed at his father. “It was a . . . friendly sorta fight.”

“Did you shake his hand with your face, then?” Ella emerged from the back of the wagon and wedged herself between Jeb and Nate on the bench. She met her father’s gaze and discreetly glanced at the floor of the wagon, indicating Shane had hidden himself in the smuggling compartment.

“Hey, I was defending your honor, ya know.”

“Oh? Does my honor need defending by an eleven-year-old boy when I’m out of town?” Ella smiled and poked Nate’s bruised cheek, but he swatted her hand.

Jeb giggled. “Will said he was going to give you a kiss for your fifteenth birthday, El. Nate knocked him right to the ground.” He swung his fist through the air.

Ella’s face flushed as she shoved her hands into the mass of her coat. She fumbled for a reply when a rustling in the grass disrupted their conversation.

A pale, sickly man broke through the sagebrush and stumbled across the road. Clad in a worn smock and metal wrist cuffs, he was sweat-soaked and bloodied. A bang echoed over the valley with the man’s next step, accompanied by the thud of a round shot. Blood spattered from his chest as he collapsed into the mud.

Lieutenant Joran sat on his horse further into the field, rifle aimed and still smoking. He steered his horse to the body and began the tedious task of reloading the weapon. When finished, he slung the gun across his back and sat at attention while his horse sidestepped away from the bloody corpse, whose skin dulled and grayed with each second. Glancing briefly at Jon, Joran bowed his head and turned his eyes to the road.

Ella gasped. “Papa, isn’t he—”

Jon raised a hand. “Look away, children.”

Ella and Jeb stared at the floor planks, but Nate glared at his estranged uncle while another soldier on horseback trotted by and halted next to the body. Jon scowled as the man frowned at him. Captain Percy Duval was a man people went out of their way to avoid.

“Third North Rangers,” Ella whispered with her head bent downward.

She really was well suited for this business.

The captain sneered at the body lying in the mud. “I would have preferred him alive, Lieutenant. This wretch had made a contract with forest demons.”

Joran saluted. “My apologies, Captain. Your orders were to catch him at any cost. I aimed for his legs, of course, but the scoundrel ducked.”

Jon stifled his laughter, too afraid for himself and his children. The fugitive had certainly not ducked.

Duval gritted his teeth. “Bring him to Lorinth and hang him over the temple stage. He’ll get no burning. Superstition is going out of fashion, Lieutenant. We must replace it with fear.”

“Yes, sir.”

Duval flashed Jon a wicked grin, sending a tremor through Jon’s chest. Joran steered his horse between them. “Just some bystanders, Captain.”

As Duval’s gaze lingered, Jon feared the ranger’s schemes. He considered Shane’s loaded crossbow stowed under the bench. He relaxed when the captain nodded and kicked his horse into a trot, heading toward town. Letting out a long breath, Joran dismounted next to the fallen man, now a rigid corpse.

Jon flicked the reins. The children huddled silently as the cart jostled into the ruts of the narrow highway.

—

Once they entered the town square, Nate jumped off the cart, skirting a puddle. “I promised Powet I’d help him in the shop today.” He ran to the smithy next to Donfree’s Trading Post.

Although he dodged the wheels of a passing cart, he crashed into a lamppost. The housing shook, the door flung open, and a spray of bright, blue sunrock powder spilled, glittering in the wind. Several identical lampposts lining the streets of Lorinth cast a haunting light against the overcast sky.

“Watch your left side.” Jon waved. Before disappearing into the smithy, Nate waved back.

Jeb said goodbye and ran after his brother, leaving Jon and Ella to steer the cart around the trading post and into the barn. The boys seemed eerily unaffected by the scene they had just witnessed.

“Papa, shouldn’t we shut the door?” Ella hopped off the wagon and tugged the barn door along its rusty tracks.

Jon shook himself and stepped off the cart. The door scraped along the wall as he pushed, sending flecks of black paint swirling like falling ash. When the latch clicked, Shane slipped out of hiding.

“Stay here tonight.” Jon pointed to the loft.

“Abad is in town. His horses are out back,” Ella said. “He could leave with you at first light.”

Shane pulled his hood back, frowning. In the dim light, his eyes held their own glow, and the horizontal scars on his cheeks, one on the right and two on the left, could pass for smears of dirt. His dull, silver braid matted against his thick neck. “What about leaving tonight? I’d rather not risk a tangle with more Drawls.”

“Really? I thought it was your hobby,” Ella said, earning a scoff from the mercenary.

“You’d be walking into a tangle leaving at night with vultures in town,” Jon said. “It’s less suspicious to leave in the morning.” He dug in his pocket and handed his daughter a coin. “Get Shane some dinner and blankets. He’s going to lay low until he’s well out of Taria.”

Shane grumbled while removing his bedroll from the wagon.

Ella patted Shane on the back and left through the side door.

Jon opened the tailgate of the wagon. Removing crates and burlap sacks, he stacked them against the wall under a shuttered window. Shane shed his coat and pushed back his sleeves, revealing intricate tattoos. His leather vest still had streaks of blood from their disastrous smuggling acquisition in Estbye.

Jon moved the last crate from the wagon. “Shane?”

“Yeah, Jon?”

“Don’t ever ask me to do this burning kind of work again.”

“What? You’re not having fun?” Shane snickered and opened the smuggling compartment. Inside lay an unconscious man—bound, gagged, and blindfolded.

“No, Shane. I’m not having fun.”