A gravestone stared back at me on the longest night of the year.

A watermark etched the wall that stood on the edge of the cemetery as a forgotten sentry to the Samhain flood that covered the once prosperous village of Yestlin.

I rummaged through the pouch Safira gave me at the last town. Two silver coins, a red silk thread, a tigers eye stone, and a couple grains of salt. I dumped the contents onto the ground before the name “Haljmund” and carved a circle into the dirt with a sturdy stick. I’d waited long enough for answers.

The dead know a peace the living can’t hope for. Tales of the restless dead don’t belong to truth. That doesn’t mean nothing moves in the night.

The son of a cobbler and wandering performer, I wasn’t raised on stories of dragons and bouts of heroism. I didn’t come to this crossroads with fire in my heart or glory to be chased.

I stood before the last Velnic Sage because I’d been raised honor honest men. Life taught me the fate a ruthless world had for them.

I’d read the accounts from the Wandering Sage as he strode past the wreckage in the Malton Court and through the Temari Plains. Learning about the exploits of Arkes and the due given to his threat had changed my life. It had been fifteen years since I’d held a proper set of pincers or leather cured for shoes.