His heart began to shrivel.

He stared down at Declan, who seemed surprisingly lucid for a man bleeding to death.

“What do you advise?” Tyrus whispered to his friend Mathon, a friend he had known since their shared days in an orphanage.

Mathon swallowed hard. His face was full of sadness and despair. “We thought you knew, Tyrus. We believed in you.”

It was the first crack in the eggshell. The rest of it crumpled around him.

He had failed. The despair of that knowledge hurt worse than the claw marks ravaging his face.

“Our best chance is to flee these woods,” he heard himself saying hoarsely, as the sadness nearly unmanned him. “If we separate and go our own ways, our enemy will hunt us separately and some of us may survive.” He licked his bleeding lip. “I’m not certain any of us will make it out of here alive.”

Looking down, he watched Declan Brin shut his eyes, and an expression of peace crossed the Preachán’s face. He would lie there, still, and wait to die.

It was the hardest decision Tyrus had ever made in his life. He was twenty-five years old.

“Over the years, I have periodically, though seldom, received requests to understand the lore of the Scourgelands. There is very little in the records about that forbidden place. I ascribe the lack of history to the fact that it is so lawless and dangerous that few who venture there have ever survived. Some menace lurks in those woods, a cunning menace that even the Boeotians fear. The only man I know personally who has survived a journey there is Tyrus Paracelsus. And even he rarely speaks of it without shuddering.”

- Possidius Adeodat, Archivist of Kenatos

II

The fire snapped and spat out a cluster of glowing sparks into the night air. Even the wind was timid. Phae glanced surreptitiously at the faces surrounding the camp, all eyes fixed on her father. She could see her own feelings mirrored in most of their expressions—horror mingled with dread. Only two seemed impervious to the emotional tale, namely Kiranrao and Baylen.

On the other side of Tyrus sat Annon, a Druidecht. He was Aeduan and only slightly older than Phae, but his eyes were haunted and his clothes showed the scorch marks and stains of his rough journeys. The talisman and a torc around his neck gleamed in the firelight and he absent-mindedly stroked the fur of a spirit cat, Nizeera, nestling beside him. By Annon, she saw his twin sister, Hettie. Both were the children of Merinda, the only other person who had barely survived the Scourgelands journey with Tyrus, but who had lost her mind overusing the fireblood’s magic. Hettie wore leather hunter garb and smoothed her hair over her ear as she watched. She had been abducted by a Romani as an infant, though she had eventually renounced her Romani heritage and begun Bhikhu training under the man seated next to her.

Paedrin had the dark skin and slanted eyes of the Vaettir and he was an outspoken Bhikhu. His hair was shorn short and he wore stained gray robes that were spotted with blood. His eyes were always expressive as he had listened to the tale, eager to learn more. There were several other Vaettir in the party as well. Prince Aransetis wore the black tunic of the Rikes and his cousin, Khiara, wore paler colors, clad in the formal robes of her order—the Shaliah, the healers of Silvandom. The last Vaettir was the Romani lord Kiranrao, who had listened to the tale with a curl of derision on his lip. He dressed like shadows and his very presence reminded Phae of smoke. Baylen was slightly apart from the others, a hulking Cruithne warrior from Kenatos who had multiple blades strapped to his back and wore armor and battle gear. He showed little emotion on his face or in his eyes, and had listened to the tale with only small coughing chuckles to mark his surprise.

Seated next to Phae, his knee just touching hers, was Shion, her protector. He had the look of an Aeduan and he had once served their enemy, the Arch-Rike. His face was raked with scars from some previous vicious battle. His gaze was intent as Tyrus spoke. Phae believed that Shion was connected to the Scourgelands somehow.

Tyrus’s voice resumed, breaking the stillness as the sparks winked out. “That was the moment when I broke,” he murmured softly. “That was the moment when I failed. I rarely share this experience and still feel the shame of it. I left one of my best friends to die. But it is important—crucial, even—that you understand the horrors we will all face inside the Scourgelands. That was eighteen years ago. Only Merinda and I survived, and only because she sacrificed herself and unleashed the fireblood’s full force to save my life.”

He took the small, charred stick he had been using to stir the fire and prodded it once more, shifting the weight of a glowing log. “There was something we had in that previous journey that we lack among us now. Any thoughts as to what that might be?” He raised an eyebrow curiously.