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The man he was chasing, clad in a thick garment of some kind that revealed nothing underneath, was carrying
another
man over a shoulder. The man being carried was gnarled, twisted, and broken. Obviously dead. He could not make out any other details.
    Backing up roughly twenty paces from the edge of the trees, he began a dash back toward the edge. Right before he hurled himselfforward into the open night air, he felt another surge of strength tear through him, enhancing his jump’s height and distance. The blessing turned to a curse, however, as Aiden lost control sailing through the air and began to tumble wildly. Just before the ground met him, he righted himself to at least land on his hands and feet. The velocity of the fall was too great and he felt both his shoulders rip free from their sockets as he hit the wet grass that might as well have been a boulder. The pain was incredible, sapping his strength. He lay on the wet ground, grimacing with discomfort and heaving for breath, trying to calm himself. He felt the heavy footfall become fainter as he drifted to unconsciousness with the realization that he had failed in his duty so completely, a crushing weight upon his chest.

THREE
    Reign
    Day 18 of 4 th Dimming 406 A.U.
    REIGN’S HEART SHOULD HAVE BEEN RACING, but it was calm as a currentless stream. She sat soundless and perfectly still. The taste of wet air filled her mouth as she breathed slow and steady. Emotion found no purchase within her and disbelief muted any normal feeling that might have been conjured up from deep inside, holding it at bay.
    How can I feel absolutely nothing?
It was easy, she knew, when your heart had been emotionally petrified. Not even the haunting screams of her mother reverberating within the small cavity of the Triarch tree she hid within affected her.
    “No! Thannuel, no!” she heard her mother scream, but the sound was dampened, as if she were underwater. The vibrations of others searching through the forest clamored amongst her senses. Hold guards shouted, hounds barked and howled, but she barely registered them. The man—the scarred monster that had touched her briefly—now ran east at the pulse of a stampede. How could one man’s run sound so thunderous? In one part of her mind that still registered reality, she felt Master Aiden in pursuit at the treetops. Her shoulder tingled slightly where the monster had touched her, the only sensation she consciously recognized besidesoccasional orange flickers of light that interrupted the scene of black night before her; but even these were translucent at best, appearing as smeared images through beveled glass. The night was not just black—it was cruel. It had taken her father and left her alone and scared, seemingly shackled and forced to watch her world shatter before her.
    But he’s too strong to die!
she reasoned with herself.
It’s a trick!
    She could not believe, could not accept, that her father, the Lord of the West, had been defeated. It was impossible.
    Why won’t you get up? Please! Get up!
    “I’ll always be here,” she remembered him saying as he held her. She had believed him. He had never lied.
    “You have nothing to fear,” he would tell her after a nightmare. “All Darkness fears the Light. I will never leave you—not until you are ready for this world.”
    He’ll come back for me. I just need to wait. He’ll come back. He’ll come back. He’s not dead. He’s not dead. He’s not dead. Not dead. Can’t be. Cannot be dead. He wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t leave. Won’t leave me. Just wait. You’ll see, just wait
.
    But he did leave her—long before she was ready. And she knew now there were things to fear. These thoughts in her mind battled the part of her heart that still believed, still had faith, that her father would save her.
    He promised! He wouldn’t lie…wouldn’t leave
—
    The reality of what she had witnessed could not be expunged from her mind, slamming against all the certainties