PROLOGUE: The Smell of Burnt Porridge.

  The sun hadn’t quite cleared the jagged peaks of the Northern Range, but the light was already spilling into my room, pale and cold.

  I stretched, my joints popping in the silence. For the first time in weeks, I felt… light. I dressed with the practiced ease of a man who had worn plate and mail for a decade, though today I opted for a simple woolen tunic. It was a rest day. A day for family, so I gave my servants the day off to spend with their loved ones.

  Downstairs, the house smelled of peat smoke and toasted oats.

  “You’re late, Kaelen.” my mother called out before I even hit the bottom step.

  She was standing by the hearth, her hair more salt than pepper these days, wrapped in a thick and elegant shawl. She was stirring a pot with a wooden spoon, her expression one of focused concentration.

  “The sun isn’t even up, Mother” I sat at the heavy oak table, the wood smooth from years of use. “Even the garrison hounds are still asleep.”

  “A knight doesn’t win wars by sleeping” she countered, though her eyes softened as she set a steaming bowl in front of me. She pressed a hand to my cheek—her palm was rough, calloused from a lifetime of northern labor. “You look tired, My Son. Truly tired. Are you sure the Duke is treating you well?”

  “I’m fine.” I lied, leaning into her touch. “Just long patrols. The border has been quiet, but the cold wears on a man.”

  “Eat.” she commanded, sitting across from me with her own cup of tea. “Before it freezes over. I put an extra dollop of honey in yours.”

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  I took a spoonful. The sweetness was comforting, a small mercy in a harsh land. We sat in a comfortable silence, the kind that only exists between people who don’t need to fill the air with words. I watched the steam rise from my bowl, feeling the warmth of the fire on my shins. This was normalcy. This was the world as it was meant to be.

  Then, I noticed it.

  A single drop of red fell into my porridge.

  I blinked. I looked up at the ceiling, thinking perhaps the roof was leaking. But the ceiling was dry.

  Drip.

  Another drop hit the table. It wasn’t water. It was thick, dark, and smelled of wet copper.

  “Mother?” I started to say.

  I looked across the table. My mother was still sitting there, her hand still holding her teacup. But she wasn’t looking at me. Her head was tilted back at an impossible angle—snapped like a dry twig.

  “Mother!” I lunged across the table, but my hands passed right through her.

  The kitchen walls began to melt, the warm peat smoke turning into the acrid stench of burning pine and rotting meat. The sunlight turned a bruised, sickly purple. The bowl of porridge in front of me wasn’t oats anymore—it was a heap of maggots writhing in a pool of blood.

  “Kaelen…”

  The voice didn’t belong to my mother. It was younger. High-pitched. Terrified.

  I looked down at my hands. They were covered in blood. Not my mother’s. Mine. My right arm was gone, a jagged stump of white bone and shredded muscle dripping onto the floor.

  “Captain Kaelen, please… look at me!”

  The kitchen disappeared. The warmth of the fire was replaced by a wind so cold it felt like needles in my lungs. I was back in the snow. Back in the slaughter.

  Lady Elara was kneeling over me, her face a mask of soot and tears. Behind her, a pale, multi-jointed thing wearing human skin and armor was unhinging its jaw.

  “I’m sorry.” Lady Elara whispered, her forehead touching mine as the monster’s claw reached for her. “I’m so sorry I have to make you remember this.”