The tavern stank of desperation and cheap whiskey, scents that clung to every surface like the ghosts of better days. Zarak sat in the darkest corner, hood pulled low, watching smoke curl from his fingertips where they gripped his mug. The ceramic had cracked from the heat, but the barkeep knew better than to mention it. Everyone in Ashfall knew better than to bother the Burned Man when he was drinking.
Three years since the Godsfall. Three years since divine light abandoned the world and left only monsters in its wake. The old temples stood empty, their priests either dead or turned to darker faiths. The noble houses had fallen one by one, devoured by the supernatural factions that no longer had reason to hide. Humanity survived in the cracks between territories, in places too worthless for vampires, werewolves, or witches to claim.
Places like Ashfall, a mining town that had exhausted its veins of silver and gold long before the world ended. Now it served as a waystation for hunters, mercenaries, and the kind of people who had nowhere else to go.
Zarak belonged to all three categories.
"You're him." The voice cut through the tavern's muted conversations. Not a question. A statement delivered with the kind of certainty that usually meant trouble. "The hunter who killed the Bloodthorn Pack."
Zarak didn't look up from his drink. "Pack's a generous term for five rabid wolves who forgot what they were."
A leather pouch landed on his table, heavy with coin. Real gold, not the debased copper most settlements used these days. Zarak finally raised his eyes to study his visitor.
A merchant, but not the usual soft type who hired protection for caravan runs. This one had scars on his knuckles and moved with the careful balance of someone who'd learned to fight before he'd learned to count coins. Interesting.
"Name's Marcus Thorne," the merchant said, sliding into the opposite chair without invitation. "I've got a problem that needs your particular skills."
"I don't do protection work." Zarak's voice came out rough, scorched by the same fire that had marked his body. "Find someone else to hold your hand on the roads."
"Not protection. Extermination." Marcus leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Something's hunting the Northroad. Seven caravans in two weeks. Whatever it is, it's not just killing for food or territory. It's leaving messages."
That got Zarak's attention. Monsters killed for simple reasons: hunger, territory, sport. When they started leaving messages, it meant intelligence. Purpose. The kind of thing that turned a simple hunt into something complicated.
"What kind of messages?"
Marcus pulled out a piece of parchment, unfolding it to reveal a symbol drawn in what looked suspiciously like dried blood. A circle bisected by three lines, each ending in a different sigil. Zarak recognized two of them: the wolf's fang of the Moonfang Clan and the blood drop of the Crimson Court. The third was unfamiliar, a twisted shadow that seemed to move when he wasn't looking directly at it.
"Found this at every attack site," Marcus said. "Always drawn in blood, always fresh no matter how old the scene. The local garrison won't investigate. Say it's faction business and humans shouldn't interfere."
"Smart garrison." Zarak pushed the gold back across the table. "This isn't a hunt. It's politics. Find someone with a death wish to play that game."
"I'll triple the payment."
"Not interested."
"The attacks started the night after a blind girl came through town asking about the Burned Man."
Zarak's hand stilled halfway to his mug. The temperature in the corner booth spiked, making Marcus lean back instinctively.
"What blind girl?"
"Young thing, maybe sixteen. Noble bearing despite the rough clothes. Had a Bloodspire escort until she didn't." Marcus watched him carefully. "They say she killed three vampire knights with nothing but words and moonlight. Then she vanished into the Northroad, same direction the attacks started."
Zarak forced his curse back under control, though the cracked mug finally split completely, spilling cold whiskey across the scarred wood. A blind girl with power enough to kill vampire knights. It could be coincidence. In his experience, coincidences were about as common as honest merchants and faithful gods.
"When did she come through?"
"Fifteen days ago. Day before the new moon." Marcus smiled, knowing he had the hunter's attention now. "Funny thing about the attacks. They only happen on moonless nights. Almost like something's hunting in the dark between faction territories."
Zarak stood abruptly, the gold disappearing into his coat. "I'll need supplies. Silver bullets, iron shavings, salt blessed by a dead priest."
"I can get those." Marcus stood as well, relief evident on his scarred features. "When will you leave?"
"Now." Zarak headed for the door, then paused. "One more thing. The blind girl. Did she say anything else? Anything about why she was looking for me?"
Marcus frowned, thinking. "The guards who saw her said she kept repeating something. A phrase in the old tongue. Something about broken oaths and shadow's rise."
The words hit Zarak like a physical blow. He knew that phrase. Had heard it spoken over his burning body three years ago as divine fire remade him into something neither human nor monster.
"What else?" His voice came out dangerously quiet.
"That's all I know. But..." Marcus hesitated. "There's a survivor from the last attack. Merchant's daughter, hiding in the garrison. She won't talk to anyone, just sits there drawing the same symbol over and over. Maybe she saw something."
Zarak nodded once and left without another word. Outside, Ashfall's perpetual cloud cover blocked the stars, leaving the streets lit only by scattered torches and the occasional flicker of witch-light from the richer districts. He pulled his hood up and started toward the garrison, mind racing.
A blind girl with noble bearing and enough power to kill vampires. Attacks that followed her path, leaving symbols that mixed faction sigils with something older. And she'd been looking for him specifically, speaking words that should have been buried with the gods.
It stank of prophecy, and Zarak had learned the hard way that prophecies were just fancy words for other people's plans to ruin your life. But the gold was good, and he needed answers about how this girl knew things she shouldn't.
The garrison squatted at the town's eastern edge, a converted mine facility built back when Ashfall had something worth protecting. Now it housed two dozen guards who spent more time collecting bribes than keeping order. The night sergeant, a pot-bellied man named Graves, didn't even look up from his dice game when Zarak entered.
"We're closed," Graves muttered. "Come back when the sun's up and bring coin if you want us to pretend to care about your problems."
Zarak dropped a gold piece on the desk. It landed with a sound like judgment. "The survivor from the Northroad attack. Where is she?"
Graves' hand moved toward the gold, then stopped as he finally looked up and recognized his visitor. The blood drained from his face.
"Burned Man. I... she's in the holding cells. But she's not right in the head. Won't eat, won't sleep. Just draws that damned symbol and whispers about shadows coming home."
"Show me."
Graves led him through corridors that reeked of mold and despair. The holding cells were mostly empty these days. Crime had taken on a different meaning after the Godsfall. Why rob someone when you could sell yourself to a faction for protection? Why murder when the monsters did it for free?
The survivor huddled in the farthest cell, a girl no older than twelve with hollow eyes and fingers stained black from charcoal. The walls around her were covered in the same symbol Marcus had shown him, drawn over and over with obsessive precision.
"Leave us," Zarak ordered. Graves fled without argument.
The girl didn't react to his presence, just kept drawing. Circles and lines and that twisting shadow that hurt to perceive. Zarak crouched outside the bars, studying her work.
"What did you see on the road?" he asked quietly.
Her hand paused mid-stroke. When she spoke, her voice sounded like it came from very far away. "The dark between stars. The space between heartbeats. It wore her face but its eyes were older than the world."
"Whose face?"
"The blind princess. The last daughter. The key that breaks or binds." The girl finally looked at him, and her eyes reflected light that wasn't there. "She said you would come. Said the Burned Man would follow the ashes to gold."
Zarak's curse flared involuntarily, sending waves of heat through the cell block. The girl didn't flinch.
"What else did she say?"
"That the three must become one. That the shadow rises when the moon dies. That the Oathbreaker must choose between the flame that burns and the darkness that devours." She tilted her head, studying him with those impossible eyes. "She said to tell you the garden still grows where the gods fell silent."
The words hit him like a blade between the ribs. The garden. His family's estate, burned to ash in the Godsfall along with everyone he'd failed to protect. No one living knew about the private name his sister had given to their mother's rose garden.
No one living.
"Where did she go?" His voice came out strangled.
"North, where the roads end and the territories meet. Where the Shadowborn wait to wake." The girl returned to her drawing. "Hurry, Burned Man. The new moon comes in three nights, and with it, the first seal breaks."
Zarak stood slowly, mind reeling. Shadowborn. The name every child learned to fear, the first monsters that existed before gods brought light to the world. They were myths, stories told to explain why darkness felt hungry and shadows sometimes moved wrong.
But myths didn't leave messages. Myths didn't know impossible things.
He left the garrison without another word, stopping only to gather the supplies Marcus had promised. Silver bullets for werewolves, iron for witches, salt for the restless dead. None of it would matter against a Shadowborn, but habits died hard.
The Northroad stretched out before him, a ribbon of packed earth winding between territories no faction claimed. Neutral ground by necessity, too barren to fight over but too important to abandon. Caravans used it to move goods between human settlements, paying tolls to whichever faction controlled the nearest stronghold.
Zarak had avoided the Northroad for three years. Too many memories. Too many ghosts. But now a blind girl who knew impossible things waited somewhere along its length, and with her, answers to questions he'd stopped asking.
He pulled his hood up against the cold wind and started walking. Behind him, Ashfall's lights faded into the perpetual gloom. Ahead, darkness waited with patient hunger.
Three nights until the new moon. Three nights to find a blind princess who killed vampires with moonlight and spoke secrets that should have died with the gods. Three nights to stop whatever was leaving messages written in blood and shadow.
Zarak touched the burn scars that covered half his face, feeling the divine fire that still smoldered beneath his skin. Three years ago, he'd broken an oath to save people who died anyway. The gods had burned him for it, marked him as Oathbreaker before they fell silent forever.
Maybe it was time to find out why they'd let him live.
The Northroad swallowed him like a throat, and somewhere in the darkness between territories, something ancient stirred in its sleep.
The hunt had begun.