There’s blood in the water. Mine. Maybe someone else’s. I can taste it—metal and salt and mud.
My eyes sting. My throat’s raw. My chest burns.
My ears ring with the river’s roar, and underneath it, I hear something.
Laughter.
Not the kind from the ogres. That was guttural, violent, full of bloodlust.
This?
This is different.
It’s deep. Bone-deep. A low rumble that vibrates through the water, through the log, through my skull. Like mountains laughing. Like the forest itself found something funny.
It’s not cruel, but it ain’t kind either.
It’s old.
Ancient.
And it’samused.
Like whatever’s out there saw what happened to me, to my squad, and chuckled at the absurdity of it all.
I try to lift my head, to look, to see—but my vision’s smeared, my body’s done. My grip slips. I barely keep my arm wrapped around the log.
That laughter echoes in my ears, chasing me into the dark.
It’s the last thing I remember.
Then the river swallows me again—and the world goes black.
2
KRAGNA
The light finds me through the slats in the old wood and the cracks in my stonework.
A soft gold that slinks in under Heartbreak Bridge, brushing warm fingers across my iron-gray skin. I stretch, joints popping like kettle stones in heat. The mountain air's crisp, thin, filled with the heady scent of moss, dew, and last night's fire. A good morning. A slow morning.
My beard’s a mess.
I shuffle to the mirror—really just a polished hunk of bronze I hammered into shape a century ago—and eye the situation. Twigs. A dead beetle. One stubborn knot of crabapple paste I don’t remember getting there.
"Charming," I grumble, plucking out the worst of it.
Clippers. Comb. Oil from the amberroot bush.
I groom like a knight about to ride into court, beard glistening, horns polished to a burnished gold. My reflection’s not bad, all things considered. Big nose. Thick brow. A face you could carve into a cliffside and call it home.
A deep groan echoes nearby—my still waking up.
I cross the flagstone path to my distillery, where the stone’s still warm from the night fire. The barrel burps gently, steam curling from the copper piping as the first drips of moonshine splash into a catch jar.
I take a sniff. Nose full of smoke, bark, and fermented crabapple. Just right.
“Another week and she’ll be perfect,” I say to no one in particular.
