Before stepping out into the vacant street, Dane Ironside lifted his hood, casting his features in shadows. Although the dead from the siege were removed from the battlements and streets in the days and weeks following the death of King Ragnar, the cloying stench of death and shame remained. The remainder of Gharra’s people cowed and trembled within the walls of their homes. But their homes’ protection was a fallacy, a figment of their imagination. No one was safe in Gharra.

Every noble who presided over the city—every man who held a position within the Gharran court—was slaughtered by the Malirran King, Lukar. In a maneuver that showcased King Lukar’s and his councilors’ lack of mercy and bloodthirstiness, the entire curtain wall was decorated with the rotting heads of nobility who once helped rule Pyran.

Dane’s hands shook with rage and sorrow at the knowledge his own father’s head was prominently displayed above him, though he refused to shift his gaze from the ground. The head was the only remnant left of the once burly, kind man.

However much he grieved at the manner in which his father was killed, his entire being screamed at the horrific treatment of the noblewomen killed. Every time he woke from a nightmare, he thanked the God and Goddess for his mother’s death during his time in training. He had mourned both her and his sister’s death during childbirth. Now, Dane thought it a blessing. There were many women who weren’t so blessed, who had suffered horrifically at the hands of the flesh eaters. Remembrance of their cries sent a shiver through his cold body. The women were made an example for any Pyranni thinking of fighting back.

The Malirrans were methodical in their dissection of their helpless prey. Every woman was chained to a rapidly built structure. No one had known its purpose until that dreadful day. The king’s first proclamation was for the populace of Gharra to present themselves in celebration of his new reign, gathering in the main street that led to the king’s castle. Having no idea what to expect, the citizens left the safety of their homes, trailing behind their neighbor to watch the desecration and consumption of the noblewomen’s bodies.

In the trudging steps of the populace, the women’s cries for help and screams of agony and despair rang out. From a noble house, Dane dreaded seeing the bodies of women who had once been safeguarded inside their homes, only to be seen in public once they married. He recognized many of the lifeless faces, and he forced himself to scan the women, wanting to remember them for when he exacted vengeance on their enemy. Yet, his eyes latched onto one woman and didn’t move on, unable to look away from the ravaged but familiar face.

Skye’s mother.

Malirran soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the raised platform, ready for any insurgency from the long file of Pyranni people. Dane knew any attempt to save the women was pointless—a death sentence for any man, woman, or child desperate enough to try.

For all his skills, he was helpless to do anything but watch while one of the councilors greedily delved into her bleeding body, extracting something Dane refused to name. Through her tears, he knew she recognized him, making him shudder with shame for standing there, watching her suffer a slow, agonizing death.

She made no effort to call for help, even though her eyes were riveted to his. What amazed him was that through her pain, she gifted him with a tremulous smile before she whispered three words.

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For a moment, he despaired. She spoke to him alone, as if she had expected him to appear before her. Yet, he could not understand the words her bloodless lips formed.

Through a fluke of nature—or perhaps the God and Goddess were present that day, Dane did not know, but the breeze shifted and brought her whispered words to him. She had not spoken his name like he thought. She had whispered her dishonored and outcast son’s name. The name she’d chosen for the son she’d given birth to so many years before.

“Skye is coming.”

The words felt like a promise, a foretelling.

Her certainty was indisputable.

Those three words became her deathbed vow. Skye’s mother gave one last gasp before her eyes emptied of life.

A burst of pain had struck him in the middle of his chest. The pain so real, he looked down to see whether the point of a sword had run him through. Although her death was an emotional blow, one more death on the conscience of his soul, it was the words that made him rock back on his feet.

Despite the gruesome tableau before him, uneasiness grew, overrunning the numbness that had taken hold. The loss of his battlemate had devastated him. He couldn’t argue for Skye’s innocence, not against the infallibility of the three witnesses. Beyond his personal feelings, though, his own honor had come under question. Dane had had to become ruthless, taking more and more risks in an endeavor to protect his family’s standing.

Now, he could not help but wonder. Dane had known Skye better than anyone else, even the mother who had died not ten running strides away. Despite the evidence, he had held onto a kernel of doubt, his faith in his friend undeniable. For a mother who had denounced her familial connection to Skye Silverhand, only to whisper his return while in the midst of torture, Dane believed her.

Skye was coming home.

At the memory etched into his brain, his long stride stuttered, scattering rocks from his path. The pinging sound of rocks skipping over the cobblestone echoed in the eerily silent street, bringing him back to the present. Shifting to the shadows, Dane hunched over, shrinking his tall, muscular body into a shape reminiscent of a man much smaller than his stature.

Even now, weeks later, he wondered what she meant by those three words. Skye would be beyond foolish to return to Gharra. Not so much because of his outcast status, but Gharra was now a war-torn kingdom. A mere shadow of a once proud kingdom.

He did not know why, how, or when Skye would come to the place of his birth, but he held no doubt that his friend would return. The Goddess call him mad if She wanted. His instincts told him Skye’s return would herald a momentous occasion for the people hiding behind the walls he passed.

All he could do was survive until his lost battlemate returned to Gharra. Survival took priority. A close second required devising a strategy, a plan to overthrow their new rulers, their enemy. Their evil must be destroyed at all cost. It could not spread to the four corners of Pyran. With this in mind, Dane took a deep breath and held it, listening for the heavy tread of the Malirran guards.

Never far away, they didn’t disappoint. No sooner than he hit the shadows, the echo of footfalls sounded from farther down the street. For once using his childhood to good use, he called on his rusty acting skills and pushed aside his warrior instincts to fight and kill the guards. Dane wrapped himself in his filthy and tattered cloak. Beneath the questionable warmth of the cloak, he wore clothing that had seen better days.

Confiscating the clothes from his father’s playwright building had taken both stealth and intensive planning. Without the beggar’s outfit, as well as the other outfits he had filched for his use, Dane couldn’t travel the streets looking for his other two battlemates, Timosy and Thanel.

In the hope that splitting up would protect them, they had each gone into hiding, storing their weapons away, becoming one of the townspeople. He prayed they had survived the initial purge of the city after King Ragnar was killed. Their physique was difficult to hide, but he had faith his two friends lived.

He simply had to find them.