Chapter 1

Darkness, black as the depths of a twilit sea, pressed down on her. Before, it had been too heavy to shift. But she could not lie as if dead forever.

Leiyn pried open her eyes.

Her eyelids were gummed nearly shut. Something crusted over her face. Her head throbbed with each pulse of her heart. Hunger and thirst clawed at her. Weariness clotted in her veins like dried blood.

Blood.

Fragments of memories assaulted her. Of agony and violence. She flinched at the remembered strikes. What had provoked them?

At least some of her wounds remained from the half-remembered fight. As she shifted her jaw, she groaned. It was broken, or at least severely bruised. It had been long since she had to endure wounds without her mahia healing them. That more than anything spiked fear through her.

Where am I?

Even with her eyes open, the gloom of her surroundings was smothering. Leiyn tilted her head, lacking the strength yet to rise. Dark walls and ceiling greeted her everywhere she looked. The walls appeared hewn from stone, straight and seamless. The ceiling was ragged with stalactites, indicating this place had been carved from a natural cave.

Her nose agreed with the assessment, noting the subtle stenches of must and bat guano. Creatures and plants existed here.

Small sounds corroborated her theory. Water dripped in distant pools. Something scuffled on the ground nearby. A rodent, most likely.

Or someone sneaking up in ambush.

Even with her fear spiking, her pulse remained feeble. She could not muster the strength to twist her head around to look, much less stand and investigate. Leiyn tried stretching forth her lifesense, but her efforts petered at a pace beyond her body. She could not tell if something restricted it or if her exhaustion truly ran so deep.

Past time we found out. On your feet, Firebrand.

She rallied her remaining energy and heaved herself upright. A dozen new pains announced themselves as she sat up. Her vision danced; the throbbing in her head renewed so she had to close her eyes. She nearly forgot her possible visitor as she leaned her forehead against her knees and tried to still the spinning world.

Belatedly, she realized each of her movements called up the scuffling. Cracking open her crusted eyes once more, Leiyn peered at her hands. Both her vision and lifesense showed manacles to be clasped about her wrists. These were not of lifeless metal, but pale and glowing with esse. To be imbued so, they had to have been part of something once alive.

Bone.

She lifted her hand and found a chain connected to the shackles. The links were similarly made of bone; spinal discs, by the feel of them. Midway along its length, a second chain connected to it to run up to her neck—to a collar she only then realized was there.

Her bonds were not entirely identical. Where the left manacle was uncomfortably warm with lifeforce, the right was cold and numbed her arm to the elbow. The collar differed from both, sending a buzz through her body as if she stood near Mehu’Ra while the tempest hawk spread lightning across the sky. Yet while that was an invigorating experience, this current irritated and muddled her thoughts.

Suspicion threaded through her as she stared at her bonds. They did not chain her to the ground or walls, but only to each other. She could move freely, should she find the energy to do so.

Though she itched to see more, Leiyn paused to take stock of her possessions. There were few enough for which to account. All her weapons had been stripped away, as had her pouch containing her amber beads and the fox figurine Tadeo had carved for her.

She ached for the loss of the latter. Almost, it felt as if she lost the lodgemaster anew. In a sense, she had; the wood carving held the barest spark of his essence. When concentrating with it in hand, she could just feel him and see his face as if before her. Feel as if he were alive once more.

I’ll get you back, she promised him. Once I get out of here…wherever I am.

Her clothes appeared to be the same Iritu garments she had been wearing for months now. Now, though, they were devoid of their enchantments and torn and bloodied as if from battle.

Battle…

Shrieks. Agony. Ash and fire raining down. Teya hurt on the ground. Batu fighting, losing. Ketti and Ekosa braced against an indomitable tide. Ata, dripping with ichor, her lifefire nearly extinguished.

Then lyshans, tall as mountains, looming over her. Titans roaring, clawing. The executioner’s axe falling.

Clouded Fang…

She gritted her teeth and pushed the tangled feelings away. She could not think about her multitude of failures. Not now.

But neither could she forget.

Her feet were bare and cold, her toes numbed so she barely felt them, yet Leiyn still rocked to her feet and tried to stand. She pitched over at once, knocking her shoulder against the stone floor, a groove between the tiles snagging her ragged shirt.

Groaning, she craned her head to watch for visitors. None manifested around the corner. She was in no more danger than before.

Leiyn pressed her hands to the floor and heaved. Back at the Lodge, she had vied against other rangers to see who could push up their body the most times in a contest of strength. Now, achieving a single repetition felt as hard as a hundred. Breath quickening, she placed her feet under her and rose to a crouch. Once her vision slowed its spinning, she carefully stood.

A hand to the wall ensuring she remained upright, Leiyn blinked through the remaining sparks in her vision, then took a shuffling step forward. She kept her hand out, unsure of her balance. Her multitude of wounds thrummed, her bruised shoulder adding to them.

Pushing them from mind, she focused on the way forward. Reaching where the wall turned outward, Leiyn paused to look back at the alcove in which she had awoken. It was largely empty and shapeless, curved walls ending in a lone dusty altar without icons or other implements of prayer atop it. A bucket rested next to it, the faint odor rising from it making plain its purpose.

Facing forward, Leiyn hobbled from the chamber. If she was a prisoner, it was in a dungeon without bars. Nothing blocked her way as she entered a corridor that rose several times her height. The dark stone remained the same all around: an attempt made to tame the walls and floors, while the ceiling was as crude as any Titan Wilds cavern. The corridor led in either direction, opening into alcoves similar to hers at irregular intervals.

She turned right toward the source of the faint light. After being kept in shadow, she longed most of all to see.

To understand the tomb in which she was interred.

Two dozen agonizing steps later, the corridor opened into a larger chamber, soaring over ten times her height. The source of the light lined the curved walls: dozens of glass orbs, broad as barrels, set atop rusted metal posts. Within the glass orbs were not flames, but a pile of beads, each glowing as bright as hot embers. Pearls, she guessed them to be by their near-white light. Amid a circle of the pillars stood a glass orb many sizes larger—nearly the size of a carriage. This one was filled with jet stones, also imbued with lifeforce so they emitted a dark radiance.

She followed the curve of the chamber across the tiled floor. From the sprawling walls were openings to five more corridors similar to the one she had exited. A seventh archway to her left led to a staircase, its stairs shaped from the stone and pitted at the edges, worn from centuries of use. Opposite the stairs was a tiered altar, a mess of wax dripping down its sides. Candles layered atop it, none lit for the moment.

In the gaps between the other halls rose gargantuan statues carved from the very walls. Even with their features shadowed, light only cast from below, Leiyn recognized them at once. Jadiel. Luciana. Carmen. Hugo. Inhoa.

The five Sacred Saints.

Though their towering portrayals inspired awe, their presence came as no surprise. If this place was a catacomb, it only made sense; the Saints were often displayed in the hope of ushering the spirits of the deceased to reunification with Omn in Unió, the eternal afterlife.

Most curious was the sixth statue. Though it had begun to be shaped like the rest, the body had been left roughly hewn. The face looked to have once been as meticulously detailed at those of the Saints, but vandalization by chisels had destroyed the loving work. All Leiyn could tell of what remained was that their shape appeared female, and their hair had fallen past their shoulders in voluminous curls.

Her vague curiosity vanished as rattling metal echoed across the chamber. Still leaning against the wall to remain upright, Leiyn watched with a quickened pulse as a person took form from the shadows in the corridor opposite her. As the newcomer shuffled forward, the light of the pearls illuminated their features, though their head remained bowed. Scraggly hair that might have once been blonde hung in limp, greasy strands about their face. They were clad in a threadbare tunic that looked too thin to banish the chill of the cave. Beneath the fabric, Leiyn detected hints of an emaciated form. Their shuffling gait told of a long stay, as did the familar way with which they navigated the heavy iron chains clasped to their neck, wrists, and ankles.

Even with all the changes wrought upon their figure, Leiyn knew them. Knew her. She had thought too often of her fate to ever forget.

Belen of Wharfhaven, wall captain of Southport. Her friend and comrade for too short a time.

Leiyn had thought her dead at Khamo’s hands. She had not dared imagine the lyshan had taken the captain prisoner. Yet here she was, starved and imprisoned for three seasons, but alive.

She did not know whether she should feel relieved or the more guilty for it.

Though Belen did not raise her head, her aim was clear as she doddered across the grand chamber toward Leiyn. At halfway, she looked up, revealing the telltale red scar upon her cheek. Her eyes, once sharp with a keen wit, had dulled. Even the color in them had paled, their green become the gray of winter lichen.

Leiyn watched as Belen drew near. The captain stopped two paces away, then stood, staring. Waiting for Leiyn to speak first, perhaps. If so, Leiyn owed her that much.

Shifting her jaw and repressing a gasp of pain, Leiyn forced out her name. “Belen.”

Belen’s eyes flitted over Leiyn from behind her grimy locks. “They were right,” she whispered. “He took you.”

They? She wondered who that meant. Perhaps paladins, priestesses, or acolytes, gossiping as they brought them food and water?

Who “he” indicated was more obvious.

Leiyn cleared her throat to speak again. Garbled though the words were, she hoped she could make them understandable. “I’m sorry.”

Belen laughed, the sound hollow of humor as it echoed to the chamber’s vaulted ceiling. “Sorry,” the captain repeated. “Maybe you are. Doesn’t matter, though, does it? It’s over. He won.”

A dozen questions flitted through Leiyn’s mind. But with her jaw askance and her energy sapped, she could only meet Belen’s stare and hope it conveyed all her sorrow and desperation.

The captain looked away, chains clinking. “Shouldn’t waste our energy. He’ll know you’re awake. He’ll come for you. Soon.”

Belen turned away, heedless of Leiyn’s pleading gaze, and shuffled back the way she had come.

Leiyn watched her go. Belen did not look back, but kept her head bowed, chains scraping along the stone. Only once the captain had disappeared into the corridor did she let herself sink to her knees.

She’s right. It’s over.

Dark waves swept over her, drowning, draining the last of her strength. She had fought as hard as she could. Killed lyshans and Suncoats, priestesses and paladins. Saved what few of her friends remained.

But what did it matter? In the end, it had not been enough. Gone was Clouded Fang. Her magic. Her freedom. She had not even had the strength to claim a good death.

Sharo had won.

She longed for nothing more than to let melancholy sink her into a stupor. To sit there in the cavern and wait for her tormenter to come and finish what he had begun.

But rebellion simmered in her blood. Even futile resistance was a fight worth pursuing.

Spite propelled her back to her feet. Hatred spurred her across the grand chamber. Though it felt as if it stretched for leagues, she did not let herself slump down and rest.

She would not give in. Only death parted her from duty. Only death could kill her spirit. And though it loomed close, though it might find her at any moment, death had not claimed her.

Yet.