Chapter 1 

Betty

The wind is a razor, slicing through the gaps in my thin cloak.

It’s an Oshtan wind, carrying the iron-sharp scent of the mountains and the heavy, damp smell of snow. And beneath that, the smell of burning pine.

Woodsmoke.

My stomach seizes. The scent is a ghost of another fire, of screams and melting snow, of a life that burned down to ash because of me. My hand comes up, fingers finding a lock of messy brown hair by my ear, twisting it, twisting, until my scalp stings. The small pain is an anchor. It’s real. The rest is just a ghost.

Oakhaven is a village of ghosts. We’re all just waiting for the cold to take us.

I pull my cloak tighter, my gaze sweeping the Lowtown. A few withered, brown wreaths hang on doors, pathetic symbols of a Christmas we don't have the heart to celebrate. It's a holiday of hope. And hope is a cruel joke in a world ruled by Dark Elves.

"Betty."

Joric’s voice. I stop, my shoulders tightening, but I turn.

He stands in my path, his hands fisted in his pockets. He’s young, like me, but the harsh life here has already carved deep lines into his face.

"Joric."

He pulls one hand from his pocket, his movements stiff. "I... I made this. For you. For Christmas."

He holds it out. A small deer, carved from a knob of pale wood. It's beautiful. The lines are smooth, the creature caught in a moment of poised, delicate life. A life that doesn't exist here.

A new kind of guilt, sharp and hot, floods my throat. He's a good man. He deserves a woman who is whole, not a hollow shell. "It's beautiful, Joric. But I can't."

His face, so full of fragile hope a second ago, shutters. His jaw clenches, the muscles standing out. "Always 'can't,' Betty."

"Please. It's not you. I just..." I don't deserve it. I don't deserve anything. "I can't."

He shoves the small, perfect deer back into his pocket, his shoulders stiff with pride and hurt. "Heard you're taking the wood run again. To the edge." His voice is hard now, accusatory. "It's foolish. Elder Maeve told you to stay inside the old boundary. Worgs have been seen."

"We need the wood, Joric."

"Let someone else go. Let me go."

"I'm going."

His eyes scan my face, searching for the girl I used to be. He'll never find her. "You want something to happen, don't you? You walk around here like you're already dead."

His words hit their mark, a precise, painful strike. I turn away from him, my hatchet in hand. "The village needs wood, Joric. I'll be back before dusk."

I don't wait for his reply. I walk past the sagging palisade, past the last hovel, and into the suffocating silence of the snow-choked forest.

Joric was right to be angry. I am reckless. Maybe a beast will find me. Maybe it would be... a relief.

This is my penance.

I’m just too cowardly to finish the job. My family—my mother, my father, my little brother—they’re all ash, all because I thought I could be a hero. Because I hid an escaped slave, and the Dark Elves made an example of us. I was the only one who got out.

I should have burned with them.

The hatchet feels heavy in my numb fingers. I push deeper into the woods, to the "edge" where the trees are old and the deadfall is thick. Every villager with sense stays away. They fear the Worgs, the Batlaz, the things that skitter in the dark.

I fear the smell of woodsmoke.

Maybe a Worg will find me. Maybe one of the Dark Elves' pets, one of those hulking, twisted creatures they use for war, has been left for dead out here. The thought sends a cold spike through my gut, but it's not fear. It's... a quiet, shameful hope.

An end is an end. Atonement, finally.

I find a thick, fallen pine and begin to work, the thwack of my hatchet a dull, rhythmic sound in the silence. My muscles burn, my lungs stinging with the frigid air.

That's when I hear it.

Not a Worg's howl. Not the skitter of a Batlaz.

It’s a groan.

A deep, guttural sound of such profound agony that it stops my heart. It’s deep, rumbling through the soles of my boots. It sounds... big.

My first instinct, the one that every villager has, is to run. To flee back to the weak safety of the palisade and pretend I heard nothing.

But I am here for my penance. And my penance means I don't get to run.

I grip my hatchet, my knuckles white, and move toward the sound, pushing through a curtain of snow-heavy pine boughs.

The smell hits me first. Copper. Sharp, hot blood, so much of it that I can smell it over the pine and the snow.

I step into a small clearing and my breath locks in my throat.

It’s not a man.

It’s a mountain. A mountain of flesh and matted-black hair, lying half-buried in a snowdrift. He’s massive. Ten feet tall, at least, a creature of corded, impossible muscle and scarred, gray-green hide. This is no creature of nature. This is a thing made for war, a living siege weapon.

I’ve seen one before. One of their pets. Left for dead.

His face is a brutish mockery of a man's, flattened and coarse, with thick, yellowed tusks jutting from a misshapen jaw. A massive hand, bigger than my entire torso, is uncurled in the snow. The fingers are tipped not with nails, but with thick, black claws.

My eyes are drawn to the wound. A jagged, star-shaped gash in the center of his chest. It’s black with old blood, but a slow, fresh tide of red pulses from it, melting the snow.

I know that mark. Dark Elf steel.

I should run. I should be sick. This... thing... was made to slaughter people like me. To burn villages like mine.

But he’s not moving. He’s just a victim. Another piece of shattered life left in the Dark Elves' wake. Just like me.

I take a half-step closer, my hatchet held low.

His breath hitches. A low hiss of air, wet and ragged, escapes his tusks.

The eyelids flutter, thick and leathery. They open.

Feral. Burning. Red.

His eyes find me. They lock on me, two embers of pure, animalistic rage glowing in the dusk. My blood turns to ice. My body is screaming, a silent, primal shriek. Run. 

But I don't. I can't.

He doesn't roar. He doesn't lunge. He just... watches me. The monster in the trap, his red gaze burning into me, his life hissing away into the snow.