Two days after the fateful meeting, Diara waited for Baard in Tinker’s Meadow, a large clearing behind the village where tinkers and peddlers often camped. The fog had not returned, and the morning sun shone brightly. When she glanced down at her outstretched legs, she could see the hem of her short tunic quite well, but her knees looked fuzzy as if they were under the water. Her feet seemed to end in hazy stumps.

She could make out the sunlit part of the grass she sat on, but the deep, black shadow her body cast on the other side made it look as though she were sitting by a small mouth of a bottomless abyss. The surrounding trees were a blurred mass. A black wall seemed to stand where the trees were in the shade. She put her sunlit hand in front of her face and studied it. Although she could see all the lines on her palm clearly, they blurred as she started to move her hand away. She wondered whether she would ever get used to her impaired eyesight.

Diara hoped the day would stay clear. Whenever a cloud passed over the sky, it was as if the shutters slammed shut in her room, or as if the dark fog rolled over her again. On a cloudy day, she could only see outlines, as she had in the fog. And when the sun hid behind the plateau in the evening, she grew almost completely blind if there was no fire nearby. She would feel vulnerable as a newborn if a cloud came now.

She looked around and nervously pulled at the grass. Where was Baard? She had told Hareth right after breakfast to go and tell him she would meet him here. Could he not leave the hut because his mother was too ill or his father too drunk? But why wouldn’t Hareth come to tell her?

She wanted to speak to him alone, to ask him about his decision about the Wrathlord, and she wished she could go and see what was happening. Unfortunately, Father told her that if he caught her within a hundred paces from Baard’s hut, he would lock her up in her room indefinitely. Old folk always sat in front of their houses like sentinels, and they could recognize her and tell her father. Then she would be grounded for months. Father seemed to hate Baard, especially since the meeting, and he had always said he didn’t understand why she had to be friends with a boy from the poorest and worst family in the village.

Her mother had died while giving her birth, and Father was overprotective—without giving her much love. Didn’t Father realize what a wonderful young man Baard was? Didn’t he see that Baard was their only hope now that they had been cursed with partial blindness?

Unfortunately, many people—including her father—resented Baard for being able to see, and very few saw him as a savior. There were even people who believed that the fog still shrouded the village, and that it thinned and thickened with the winds. They didn’t believe Ruah and Baard that it was the lack of sunshine that blinded them. How could they be so stupid?

Diara decided to risk going to Baard’s home. Just as she bent her knees to stand, though, he emerged from the dark wall of the shadowed trees. Although she saw only a blurry outline, she recognized his tall stature with broad shoulders, and his lumbering, bearlike gait. Her heart fluttered with affection. She had always thought he was special. And now he might become the realm’s hero.

Baard waved, trotted forward, and kneeled beside her. When he drew his head closer to her, she saw a happy grin on his face. She loved that toothy grin, although Hareth called it a donkey smile. Whenever they met, Baard had this flame in his eyes that suggested he wanted to kiss her. He never did, though, and sometimes she wanted to box his ears for it. Not only he had never kissed her, he had only stood still like a silly column the one time she embraced him. Did he think she didn’t like him? Was he waiting for her to be accepted among women? Was he afraid of her father’s wrath? Young boys were silly creatures!

“Where have you been?” she asked, sounding more annoyed than she intended. “I’ve been waiting for an hour or so!”

“An hour?” Baard sounded appalled. “But Hareth just told me a moment ago!”

“Oh that Hareth!” Diara knew it was just like her older brother. She had never known anyone more untrustworthy, but since her father had forbidden her to see Baard, she had to rely on Hareth as an intermediary.

“An hour wasted,” Baard lamented, “when I have so little time. I have to go logging. And people want to have their inner walls whitewashed to see better inside their houses, and some of them asked me to do it this afternoon.”

Baard looked so unhappy that it seemed it wasn’t just the lost time that troubled him. Diara was sure that Ruah’s words still haunted his every moment. It often haunted hers, too. Only a few hours ago, as she had woken up and stared into the dreadful pre-dawn blackness, her eyes had nearly filled with tears as she wondered whether he would truly depart on a mission from which he was not likely to return alive.

She peered into his eyes. They were light blue and a little squinty, but clear and beautiful. “I don’t have much time either before Father starts wondering where I am,” she said. “But tell me, have you made any decisions?”

Baard shook his head, looking troubled. She knew he was terribly indecisive. In everything. It was his biggest flaw, which wasn’t bad for a boy, but it was terrible in this situation.

“It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?” he said with a bitter smile. “I leave this village and embark on an adventure I have always dreamed about. Then I break the curse and return a hero. But things are not so easy. To break the curse, I would have to kill the curser; and the curser is a Wrathlord.”

Diara gulped and bit her lower lip.

“No human has ever tried to kill one of those monsters,” Baard said. “And perhaps a Wrathlord could only be killed by another Wrathlord, like in the second war. During the first war, it took only seven of those creatures to destroy and depopulate eastern Thorstorm and make people run west. And now I’m supposed to destroy one of them, all alone! And why? Because nobody else could see in the Wrathlands! Oh, and because of an old prophecy.”

Diara sighed. He was right that nobody in the history of Thorstorm had ever tried to kill a Wrathlord. Or perhaps they did—and became Gravelackers. Thorstorm needed a hero badly. But could it be her Baard?

He continued. “How can I decide between going to a faraway place called the Wrathlands and fighting an ageless monster, and staying here to protect you and Mother and Elya from . . . from whatever might come? The autumn will be here soon, and it’s often cloudy. I don’t want to leave you here, all blind and helpless!”

“But you might break the curse before the autumn comes,” she said. She knew she didn’t sound convinced.

Although he hadn’t even decided to go, she was already dying of fear that he might never return. Or that he would return as a living dead.

“Even Mother says that I should go, now that she has learned everything,” he said, shaking his head. “She seems to think I have been predestined for greatness, although I’m sure all parents think that about their children. Elya wants to come with me—but that would mean Mother would stay alone with Father. If only Elya stayed as well . . . But she’s stubborn. Ruah seems to think that Elya can help me break the curse. And, of course, Elya believes her.”

“Ruah often says that Elya’s blindness is a gift,” Diara said. “She used to say it even long before the fog. And now I know what she means. Perhaps there is a double meaning to that, too. Elya’s blindness helped you preserve your sight. And her blindness has given her Fierran, and a link to Ruah, which could help you along the way. Also, she could accompany you to the Wrathlands because for her it doesn’t matter that it’s always foggy there.”

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He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Maybe.”

Diara said, “Isn’t it strange that Ruah moved to Icecreek all those years ago because she had felt that something significant would happen here? Many people say she made it up, but I believe her.”

“But what does she expect me to do?” Baard asked. “March onto an army of Corpsentinels with my ax? Cut off the Wrathlord’s head with a saw?”

Diara knew he didn’t feel fit for whatever lurked in the future. And how could he? The task would seem impossible even to a weathered warrior and traveler, and Baard had never been farther than in Deerhide Forest. And yet, he was supposed to go much, much farther, to realms shadowed with mists, dread, and horrific legends, and fight monsters who might never be killed by humans. She wanted to tell him that, if he decided to go, she would go with him. But she would only be a burden.

She lifted her head to him. She wanted to kiss him and tell him what she felt for him, since he was too stupid to do so first. Then a scream came from the village.

Diara flinched. Did somebody hurt himself in a workshop? Accidents were common because people couldn’t see well. Most people now worked outside when it was sunny, or surrounded by blazing fires. They had also whitewashed the workshops to help them see better. And yet, Ruah had her hands full, making poultices and curing and bandaging cuts and wounds.

Diara tilted her head and listened. No more screaming came, and she turned her head back to Baard.

With him beside her, not even the curse seemed so horrible. She couldn’t see beyond the blurry fringes of the clearing, but what did it matter when she had Baard’s face inches from hers? She only regretted she couldn’t go with him for a walk through the village because somebody would tell Father, or stroll through the woods, where the shadows of the trees would blind her. The curse hadn’t affected the horses and other animals, so perhaps they could go for a ride one day. If they went down the wide Blizzardshore Road, she could see in the sunlit parts of the woods. She would love that.

A cool breeze came from the sea and pressed against her. The grass was damp, as usual, the coolness creeping up her spine. Soon the summer would be over and then . . . Diara shuddered, longing to cling to Baard.

Then came the thudding of hooves.

Baard straightened his back. She lifted her head, listening. Two or three horses were coming from the village, and for a moment, she thought it was Father and Hareth looking for her.

Then the horsemen emerged from the foliage that separated the village from the clearing, and she saw the outlines of the horses. There were three of them, giant like the warhorses from Grandfather’s illustrated chronicles. The three riders were also huge. As they got closer, she made outlines of conical steel caps and heard the thrup-thrup-thrup-thrup of their chainmail. They were the king’s soldiers.

Diara remembered seeing soldiers in Blizzardshore, but they had never come to Icecreek as far as she could remember. Did they come to protect them from the creatures of the Wrathlands? Or did they come to rob the helpless villagers? From the stories she had heard, it could be either.

Baard got to his knees, taut like a bowstring, as if he oscillated between standing up and lying low. He had also surely heard the stories; some soldiers truly dedicated their lives to protecting the king’s subjects. Others used their status to steal and maraud.

The soldiers rode slowly, craning their heads to see, and Diara realized their sight was also impaired. So Ruah was right that the whole realm was struck by the curse. Baard must have realized the same, for he ducked as if he hoped they would not see them. It almost seemed the soldiers would pass by, only a few yards from them, but then their horses snorted and tossed their heads, and the soldiers slowed and scanned the clearing.

One shouted, “Somebody’s over there!”

Baard stood as they wheeled the horses toward them and approached at a trot. Diara also got to her feet.

“A broad!” the first one shouted, pointing to Diara. He clasped an iron mace.

Baard shouted, “What are you—?”

The soldier swung the mace and brought it down on Baard’s head.

Diara screamed when she heard the sickening blow. She feared that the mace had broken his skull.

Baard dropped face down without a sound. Diara turned to run, but the soldier leaned toward her and grabbed her by her hair. As she squirmed in his clutches, the other two dismounted. One of them cupped her chin. His glove smelled of leather, dust, and blood. His grip was so strong she groaned with pain. He turned her face to the sun, leaned toward her, and grinned. He had a round face, curly beard, and broken, uneven teeth.

“Finally a pretty maiden!” he said in a gruff voice, emitting the stench of garlic and mead. “I was starting to think there were only hags and snotnoses in this putrid village. Let’s take her.”

She opened her mouth to scream, but he punched the side of her head, and sparks erupted in front of her eyes. She swayed, and the soldier who held her hair yanked her backward and made her stumble. The third man kicked her feet from underneath her.

Diara fell, and the soldiers kneeled by her and rolled her on her belly. Kneeling on her back and legs, they tied her wrists behind her back with a strip of leather. She tried to writhe herself out of their grip, but they tied her ankles together.

They stuck a sweaty rag in her mouth and pulled her up to her feet. The mounted soldier reached for her, lifted her, and swung her over the horse like a sack of wheat. She groaned as the pommel of his saddle jabbed into her ribs.

As the other men mounted, Diara took a last look at Baard. He didn’t move, and she thought she saw a dark puddle around his head. Was he still alive? Would she ever see him again? Tears gushed from her eyes, and mucus filled her nose and nearly suffocated her, for she couldn’t breathe through her mouth.

Another scream came from the village just as the soldiers kicked the horses and trotted out of the clearing and toward the coast. Everything dimmed as they entered a narrow path that led through Deerhide Forest to Blizzardshore Road. The riders slowed the horses and muttered curses.

“I hear the sea,” one of them said. “I hope we won’t fall down that damned cliff!”

“Don’t be daft,” another man snapped. “The cliffs have no trees, do they? They will be sunlit, and we will see well enough there, just as we did before.”

“And even if we don’t, all we need to do is give the horses their heads,” said the third one. But he also sounded worried.

The world brightened as they entered the wider Blizzardshore Road, the mostly sunlit throughway down which she had planned to ride with Baard, only a few moments ago. How could this be happening? One moment, she was sitting with him in the clearing. And now . . . Where were they taking her?

Her ribs got bruised with every step of the giant warhorse, and her belly and back hurt. She felt extremely vulnerable splayed out in front of that soldier. Fortunately, he kept his hands on the reins.

The thudding of numerous hooves came from behind them. She looked back, but all she saw was the soldier’s foot and the horse’s side, which plunged into nothingness whenever they passed a shaded stretch of the path. She guessed that other soldiers were coming from Icecreek, catching up with her kidnappers.

“Oh, you got one?” one of the newcomers said. “We couldn’t find anyone in that whole damned place.”

“Only one pretty broad in the whole village!” another one growled, sounding disgusted. “We’ve ridden all the way from Blizzardshore for this?”

“I wonder why we were sent up north anyway. There’s only Blizzardshore and this crap of a village, and a long way to get here.”

“I’m sure our brothers in the south had better luck. Three big cities there, and a few fishing villages. Lots of broads! Not like in this putrid hole.”

Diara realized that the soldiers had been sent all over the realm to round up pretty girls. Had they acted on the king’s orders?

“Stop whining, damn it,” a man said in an authoritative voice. “The mission to Icecreek was a good practice. There were only a few defenders and we didn’t have to shed much blood. But they will give us a harder time in Blizzardshore tomorrow.”

A soldier laughed. “They’ll be so surprised to find out why we truly landed there that they will be dead before they think of protecting their sisters and daughters.”

Diara wondered what it meant. She assumed that the soldiers had come from Esgardia, landed in Blizzardshore on the previous day, perhaps on the pretext of patrolling the north against monsters, and then went up to Icecreek. They had probably slept halfway there to avoid riding in the blackness of the night, and now that they had raided Icecreek, they headed back south. They would sleep in the woods again to attack Blizzardshore and capture more maidens in the morning. But why?

She recalled a story where wizards brought human sacrifices to appease the Wrathlords or wake the Sleeping Goddess. What if she and the other girls were sacrificed to break the curse? That question stalked her through the woods like a pack of wolves.