Prologue

"A marvel, isn't she, in winter's crown?" Seren's eyes drifted over frosted rooftops.

Ivy draped over wooden doorways, as fir branches curled along eaves. The sun bowed beyond the shoulders of the Tindrheim, and twilight bathed the vale in gold and violet. The even faded as a child sinks into sleep, too gentle for the dawn's promise of blood.

Cadoc crossed his arms. "Looks much the same as last year."

"Come now, boy," said Seren. "Have you no sense of wonder?"

Cadoc gave no answer; he cared nothing for the coming revelry. The drums, the chorus, the rites that poured from the vydes' mouths—all dust. It was the morning's hunt that gave rise to his heartbeat—the Culling of the Wolves. The village held Seren's heart, but Cadoc was in the forest. Deep in the woods, spear in hand, he'd claim his place. This year, I will not be passed over, he thought. This year, I will not be denied.

"Watch yourself, lad," said Eridir in a voice like gravel. The huntmaster pushed past with an armful of brushwood, and Cadoc nearly lost his footing.

"Yes, my lord vyde," said Cadoc through gritted teeth. He rolled his shoulders to shake the tightness from his body.

The huntmaster was a hard man, no stranger to the duty of the Culling. It was said that Eridir held a deep respect for the beasts—pack animals, loyal to their own. But in the dead of winter, when the hoarfrost rimed the crop and the wolves preyed upon the livestock, the grim task needed done. The Elvyde led the hunt, draped in a cloak fashioned from a dozen pelts. Cadoc wore no such shroud; his furs were given, not earned.

With the final wreath hung on high, all the village gathered before the great idol. A dozen lesser figures sprawled the square—bear, eagle, bison—the Wild Lords. Wolf was lordliest among them, a mighty hewing of yew bound at the circle's heart. To burn the beast was worship, a yielding to the keen hand of the untamed world.

Cadoc lifted his gaze to the graven-lord, then cast his eyes upon the village. Seren was right, he thought. Skyrholdt was a marvel. Embraced on three sides by the peaks of the Tindrheim and kissed by the northern sea, her longhouses lay safe in her cradle. Here, a haven, she whispered. Here, a home.

The vydes began their rituals as night fell. Tallow candles burned, and the glow conjured shadows that frolicked on the snows. Cadoc could not help but be taken by the rapture; he chanted and pranced with his people around Wolf as its flames grasped at the emerging stars, like so many fingers.

Exhausted, he sank beside his shield-mates, seated around the fire on skins. “I remember my first hunt,” said Drystan mockingly as he sat. Drystan was an older boy, with a face that girls liked and dark hair that fell just so. His wolf's pelt cloak was as white as the snows. "Nearly jumped out of me skin when the manticore came in the night."

"Manticore?" Cadoc asked, uneasy.

"Oh yes, with tufted ears and piercing eyes. A deep black creature, hungry and fierce."

"Drystan, enough," said Eridir, now settled beside them. "You're frightening the poor boy."

"He's not!" Cadoc protested. "It's just the cold."

"Don't listen to his tales, Cade," said Seren to his left. "No such creature prowls these woods, or any forest in our country. Mountain cats, could be. But they won't trouble you, not with the wolves about. They don't like the competition."

Cadoc dropped his shoulders.

"No, manticores and mountain cats don't give me sleepless nights," she said. "But this war might. Have you heard the talk, Eridir?"

"Aye," replied the Elvyde.

"And?"

"And nothing. The heartlanders can lock antlers as they like. The river runs the same."

Cadoc might've finished the huntmaster's words for him; Eridir knew but one tune. He was nothing like the warriors in the stories, and the old man's caution won him no favor amongst the Skaldyr. Still, none of Cadoc's kin were eager to cross the one who bore the mantle of lord-in-chief.

Save for Drystan, of course, the toad. "This is no small quarrel among the greenfolk, huntmaster," he said. "It is said to be the greatest war in a hundred years. The fighting will reach even our borders, ere long—they say he's taken the old Heartborn capital."

"What, Baile Castillien?" asked Cadoc with wide eyes. "I've heard the tales. They say the city is massive—"

"Yes, the upstart has made quite the name for himself," said the Elvyde. "This Eamon of Hethe." The huntmaster spat in the snow. "He's young. A boy playing at a man's game."

"Not all our people share in your mislike," said Seren, her voice low. "The Stjörnmoot stands ready to weigh the proposal of war, if you only ask it."

"Our people have cause enough to bleed," said Eridir. "I won't lead them to a gull's war."

Cadoc seized his chance. "If it comes to war, I'll stand. Talk is the heartborns fight like proper soldiers, easy enough to best. I do not fear them."

"Fear?" The Elvyde rose from his seat. "You know nothing of fear, lad." Eridir turned his head to reveal faded scars along the length of his neck and cheek. "Are you so eager for the fight? Look, then, upon the spoils! Fear is not what drives men to flee from battle, boy. Fear seduces men into the jaws of death, as brother slays brother on the field. The harpers sing sweet songs of glory, oh aye. But fear has a price, and the debt comes due. If not for the dead, then for their kinsmen." His tone softened. "Our people long for the taste of blood. Do not desire to go so blindly into the night."

The circle fell silent, farmer and vyde alike, and the fire crackled softly in the stillness. Eridir eyed the circle in search of any challenge, and sat when none came.

As chants filled the air once more, Cadoc dared to test his luck again. He breathed deep the bracing air, and there was nothing for it. "Take me for the Culling this year."

The Elvyde sighed and shook his head in dismissal. In the glow of the fire, the man's pockmarked face betrayed his age. Eridir said nothing, but his eyes passed the verdict.

Cadoc’s blood boiled. “I’m ready, Eridir. You'll be glad for my spear, I swear it,” he pleaded. The huntmaster sat for a moment to gaze deep into the flames.

"Have you ever tasted wolf, boy?” Eridir asked at last.

The question came as a surprise. "No, my lord vyde," said Cadoc.

"It's lean. Gamey. Tougher than venison—needs a longer cook over the fire. Hard meat from a hard beast." Eridir rose, then took Cadoc's hand and turned it palm-up. The Elvyde traced a thumb over the surface. "The soft hands of a tender boy."

Cadoc pulled away, his face flushed with a mix of anger and shame. He stood, then turned from his shield-mates and made for the woods. His eyes welled, but he fought the tears back as he went.

“You didn’t have to be cruel,” echoed Seren's words as Cadoc passed beyond the firelight.

He was no huntmaster, but he would not brook insults from any man. His pride was not so little as that.

---

The forest had oft been his refuge. The river was his ally, nestled roughly a thousand paces from the village borders. There, amidst the soft rustle of the trees and the quiet trickle of water over stones, his blood was sure to cool.

My thrust is as swift as Drystan's, he thought. And my aim as true. The tracker had been Cadoc's age, if not younger, when the huntmaster first chose him for the Culling. He'll regret this, the old goat.

Snow began to fall as Cadoc made his way through the forest. Slowly at first, then in thick sheets that cloaked the world in white. He could scarcely see ahead, his vision obscured by the relentless downfall. The cold bit at his face and hands as he trudged through the powder.

At last, he reached the familiar bend in the path where the river lay. Cadoc did not hear its soothing song. The river was frozen solid, its surface a sheet of unyielding ice. No gentle trickle or calming flow; there was only silence. He clenched his fists, and a cry tore from his throat to echo off the trees. He sank to the riverbank and laid his head upon a trunk to gaze up at the night sky.

It fell through the snow-blind curtain of the world.

A falling star—a gem of white-hot flame, drifting like a feather through the air. It was bright, a light to oppose all darkness. Cadoc watched wordlessly as the star fell upon the riverbank at his feet and transformed before his very eyes. Once alight, it faded now until its surface was black as onyx.

Cadoc removed his glove and picked up the stone; it was warm against his chilled skin. He turned it over in his hand, his eyes lost within symbols etched into the rock. A language, he realized. The stone started to shimmer as he tipped his palm from side to side. First a dark obsidian it was, then bright and lucent, a glowing violet crystal. The steady beat of the snow faded into a deafening silence.

And from the stillness, he heard a voice.

It was thunder, deep and bellowing. Cadoc turned his head sharply in search of his kin; he was alone. He looked down at the fallen star in his hand, pulsing steadily with an unnatural light, and fell deep into a trance. He could not make out the words that echoed in his head, yet he took their meaning for truth.

He felt power as he had never known, and his heart was filled with terrible purpose. He closed his eyes, and his mind was fraught with visions of conquest. A lone hill, he standing atop it. With helmet in hand, he called out to the sea of cavalry, who stamped upon the grass in the endless valley below.

The rush of running water brought him back. He did not know how long the visions had taken him, but the snowfall had stopped. Where the star had fallen upon the riverbank, the snow had melted, and a luminous pool now formed in its place. Water from the pool had dripped onto the river and melted the ice, leaving a long stretch of the stream unfrozen. Cadoc's eyes traced the current downhill, and his blood turned cold.

A pack of wolves gathered around the glowing water, some seven or eight by his counting. Cadoc held his breath, but needlessly; they paid him no heed. The beasts lapped at the water with a ravenous fervor. He stowed the star in the pouch at his belt and retreated into the trees.

"Cade?" he heard Eridir calling from the wood. Foolish old man!

The largest of the beasts raised its head; violet water dripped from its maw. Cadoc froze, then took another step back, and the snap of a branch betrayed his retreat. The beast rushed toward him, and instinct seized hold.

Cadoc flew from the riverbank, legs bounding through the forest. Conifers blurred past him as their needles scratched at his face and arms. He stumbled into a clearing, the sound of his frantic breaths loud in his ears. No trees, no cover, he thought. He threw himself back into a sprint, but a stray root caught his ankle, and he went down hard into the snow.

The padding of paws drew near. Cadoc turned on his back to search for his foe, fearing the worst. He cursed his own stupidity that he would forget the spear. A warrior is never without his weapon, Eridir would chastise him. But that didn't matter now. A pale shadow moved in the trees.

"Cade! Stay down!" commanded the voice of Eridir. Cadoc looked back; with his iron longsword drawn, the Elvyde stretched ten feet tall. He passed into the glade and closed in on where Cadoc lay sprawled in the grass. The huntmaster regarded him with a look of concern, then disappointment. When Eridir stepped over him, Cadoc's relief gave way to shame.

The wolf revealed itself at last, as though drawn by its true foe. Massive, ragged, and white as bone, it bared a hundred jagged teeth. “To me, cur!” roared the huntmaster. “Come and taste the iron of Eridir Wolfsbane!”

The beast growled, poised to lunge, but stopped suddenly with a whimper. Its body writhed violently, and it buried its head beneath a quivering paw. Even the huntmaster was shaken, as Cadoc looked on in disbelief. When the creature rose again, the gates of hell had split wide, and damnation stared back at them.

By some malevolence, the creature now bore three heads. A pair of amethyst eyes burned in each, alight with wrath. The hound bared its teeth once more, sharp fangs like the hanging spikes of the Tindrheim's caverns. Cadoc reckoned it one of Drystan’s fables made flesh, a ghastly image beyond his darkest dreams.

Fear bled into terror. Cadoc crawled backward through the snow, wincing from the pain shooting through his ankle. Eridir was right, he thought; he had not known fear. He pulled himself behind a tree, unable to tear his gaze from the gaunt face of Death.

With a guttural roar, the three-headed nightmare lunged. Eridir did not flinch. He stepped forward to meet the attack, sword in hand. The huntmaster was swift, but age had slowed him, and one of the creature's heads clamped onto his sword. The Elvyde screamed in fury as he wrestled to free his weapon from the beast's maw, but the gnashing jaws of its two remaining heads proved too fierce, even for him.

The huntmaster abandoned his blade; he released the weapon and stumbled backward into the snow. The wolf tossed the sword aside and lunged again. The Elvyde scrambled to rise, but the beast caught his cape with a paw, and Eridir fell to the ground.

He would not rise again.

His wolf's pelt cloak, which had seen a dozen victories, now marked his defeat. He rolled on his back, a hand raised to shield his face as the hellspawn ripped at his flesh. A red flower bloomed on the snow as the beast's fangs found purchase.

Cadoc’s mind was a tempest. His thoughts fixed on the falling star, tucked safely in the pouch at his belt. He found the stone and clutched it in his fist, his naked knuckles blue with frost, then mouthed a silent prayer for the huntmaster.

The voice answered his prayer with another booming bellow, and his visions were renewed. With his waking eyes, Cadoc saw a hammer crash down upon an anvil, and from the effort came a blade: a sword of foreign metal that shone with the light of the stars. The voice whispered the metal's name; the word came as both command and revelation.

Cadoc's vision ceased, and desperation seized him. His eyes darted frantically until they alighted upon a fallen branch, nearly the length of a spear. It was just out of reach. Cadoc crawled to the branch and grasped it. He shuddered in pain as he rose from the ground, put weight on his ankle. His mouth began to speak as though by its own will. First, he spoke the word he was bidden. Then other words poured out of him, flowing as if borne by an unseen current.

He felt his arm tremble under the branch's weight, heavier and heavier still. The earthy bark turned ivory, a shaft of white stone, pale in the moonlight. The spearhead came forth from still air, as though a wisp of smoke. Its radiant tip crowed the shaft with sharp wings. The weapon was beautiful, wrought from stone and metal that were not of the natural world.

Cadoc summoned what courage remained to him and limped from behind the tree. "Get away from him, or I'll run you through!" he cried to the beast. One of its three heads looked up at him. Eridir's blood mingled with the violet ichor that congealed at the corners of its maw.

The creature's eyes bored into him and judged his threats empty. With a snarling roar, it charged full-tilt. Cadoc gripped the pale white shaft of his spear and bent his knees in waiting. The wolf leapt through the air; Cadoc closed his eyes and thrusted with all his might. The full weight of the beast came crashing down on him, and he sank into the snow. His head hit the frosted ground, and for a moment, the world went black.

Cadoc's body felt heavy beneath the massive beast. It lay sprawled across him, its six eyes vacant. Cadoc's pole was buried deep in its chest. He summoned his remaining strength and pulled himself from underneath the weight.

He swayed like a reed as he rose. He ripped the spear from the beast, then turned to look to his master. There, in the snow, lay the lord and chieftain of his people—the Elvyde of the Skaldyr.

The old man clung stubbornly to life. He moaned low and clutched at a wound near his throat. When Cadoc drew near, Eridir turned his gaze upon him. Words failed the old man, but his eyes spoke loud enough.

It took a moment for Cadoc to taste the bitter feeling—disgust. He sank to a crouch beside the greybeard, and his eyes fell to the cloak beneath Eridir's body. When the old man caught wind of what he meant to do, he raised a feeble hand to ward him off, but the cur had robbed him of strength.

Cadoc tore at the strap securing mantle to wearer, ripped it from Eridir's body. As the life guttered out of the old man's eyes, Cadoc rose. He clutched the cloak in his fist and raised it against the light of the moon. Beneath him, a sickly gurgling rose in the dark, and somewhere in the woods, a wolf howled.

He turned away. Fear has a price, Eridir had said, and the debt comes due.

The old man had settled it.

---

When Cadoc returned to the village borders, the great idol had burned down to embers. His kinsmen gathered at the gates, their faces dark in the dying light. He limped ahead, starstone spear in hand, the Elvyde's cloak draped around his shoulders.

The others looked upon his bloodied shroud and gasped. Cadoc's knees buckled as he reached them, and Seren caught his free hand to catch his fall. The color had gone from her face. "Eridir?" she asked.

"Brother..." Drystan trailed off. "What have you done?"

Cadoc met his gaze, but he gave no answer. He released Seren's hand and staggered forward. The Skaldyr looked upon him with cold disapproval. The boy draped in a chief's mantle. He cared not; they were ghosts, spectres in witness to his great purpose. Cadoc held his head high, and the sea was forced to part before him. He labored his way to the longhouse of the Stjörnmoot, the hall of vydes past—the hall of his fathers.

Upon reaching the council’s seat, he felt the stone in his pouch grow hot. His mouth began to move again as he called forth his song. The winds whipped into a frenzy, and the air was searing fire. His people watched in wordless fear as the wooden bones of the council's seat cracked and splintered, become at once marble as pale and pure as the spear he labored to raise. The building stretched high into the godsrealm, its white stone gleaming like still water. The thatched roof faded away, replaced now with a grand dome of azure glass.

Cadoc turned to face his people and leaned on the starspear to raise himself tall. The Skaldyr stood huddled in silence. They seemed smaller somehow—now shrunk back, faces pale.

"Ever have you bowed beneath nature's lash," he thundered, his voice a tempest not wholly his own. "Ever have the Wild Lords commanded the order of things, commanded your lives! No longer. A new power is risen—the Great Power! Fear not the hour! From this day forth, you are the Chosen, called to stand above the whims of the untamed world!"

As he spoke, the wooden palisade of Skyrholdt soared upward and grew mighty, now become white walls to bar the world outside. The crude effigies of the Wild Lords shattered, limbs strewn upon the earth.

"This I give you! Shut your gates to Death's green hand. Forsake the troubles of the world that cares nothing for you! Come the honeyed dawn, you shall rise above its folly! Here, our haven! Here, our home!" His voice was music.

"The Chosen," mocked Drystan with enmity. "Are you mad? I will not cast down the honor of our fathers; I forsake only this folly! You are my kin, but some evil lends your tongue. If this be your path, I will have no part in it." He turned from the truth. Others followed him, men and women and children, off into the mist and ignorance of the mountains.

Cadoc watched them go. He could stop them, of course, but to what end? They had cleaved to the old ways, as Eridir before them. Their fate would be the same.

Those who remained looked to one another. Seren was the first to step forward and fall to her knees. Others followed behind her, one by one, most mouthing silent prayers to the Wild Lords.

Fools, thought Cadoc as he watched them. The false idols have abandoned you. Eridir has abandoned you. Drystan and all his ilk have abandoned you.

I am what remains.