PROMISE

CHAPTER 1

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

–Arthur C. Clarke

Hain charged headlong through the darkness of the Hoh Wood, and death followed.

He could feel it coming closer. Gaining. His imagination bulged with visions of alabaster fingertips brushing the nape of his neck, and greedy hands snatching at his flesh. He could hear them gaining ground, the sound of pounding feet loud as vengeance. Loud as gods.

Run faster, he thought, and the words were a whip at his back. Brush broke beneath his boots as he plowed through inky midnight air, squinting against branches that snatched at his eyes. The time for stealth was gone.

Run faster.

"There!" A Vrai shouted from somewhere in the mesh of tree and bush behind him. "I see him! I see the human!"

The words skittered out of the darkness, and Hain's breath caught in his throat.

Run faster.

The Vrai patrol had tracked him since he'd snuck from Echo, catching him by surprise as he'd wriggled from the underhaven. He'd fled, his mind filling with the nightmare promise of what would happen if he was caught beyond the haven after curfew, of a whipping post in the Forest of Screaming Trees. Or worse, the bite of a Vrai flaying knife peeling his skin from his limbs.

He'd known he should have waited for daylight to leave, but the pull of the Viajero camp had been siren song for Hain. Ever since the their caravan had settled outside Echo's walls the week before, spending time amongst his mother's people had consumed his thoughts.

Hain could have cursed himself. How could he have been so stupid?

Now the Vrai were close. Too close. With senses sharp as the flaying knives cinched to their belts, his escape was bound to fail if they closed any more of his slim gap. A clear line of sight, and they'd gun him down. Not to kill though. To wound. To make him wish he was dead.

He needed to throw them off, and it needed to happen now.

Without thinking, Hain cut left into more familiar ground, loping over the clumped ferns he knew studded the forest floor. Trees crowded the space ahead, their hulks outlined by scant moonlight bleeding through the canopy. Hain recognized the place–knew that beyond the trees the forest thinned, opening into the rolling cropland of a farm. The family there knew him, had even been kind to him once on the road into Echo. If he could shake the Vrai in the wood, he might be able to hide in the farm's cellar until the danger had passed.

At least, he hoped he could.

His breath came in panting gasps as he pushed his legs to their limit. His oxygen starved muscles felt like fire beneath his skin.

A trio of shouts rose from behind him, all angry and tinged with confusion. The Vrai had lost his trail. Hain felt something like hope bloom in his chest.

But then, as he neared the first of the ancient cedars, his hope died. His stomach clawed up his throat as the darkness parted around a face, then a body. Hain's feet stuttered against the ground and he lost his footing, pitching forward into a nest of nettles and blackberry vines. Thorns scrabbled against his leather jerkin and stabbed his palms as he rolled onto his back and scrambled back.

Someone stood in his path. Watching, and Hain thought, waiting.

Hain opened his mouth to scream, but fear stole his voice. This was it. This was the end.