PROMISE

CHAPTER 2

Hain crouched in the tall grass, unblinking eyes pinned to the slit in the crumbling building–the dark sliver where the Vrai soldiers had slipped from view. Grass waved in the salt-tinged wind blowing off the sea in sputtering gusts, their stalks whispering beneath the roar of waves. Hain breathed to the beat of the wind.

Hain drew back the worn hood of his ranging cloak, the moss colored cloth piling about his shoulders. Beneath the cloak he wore a thick wool shirt and leggings under leather armor, all of which had begun life in deepest black but now looked dingy and grey. Rawhide cord bound his waist and chest in thick braids, and he'd fixed pouches filled with dried food and useful herbs to both. On his feet, he wore boots that stretched to his knees, the leather worn to near translucence in places from countless steps through the wilds.

A fresh gust picked up from the sea, and his shaggy black hair fluttered over his mismatched eyes, green as jade and ashen grey. His attention settled on that night months before. On that night with the dead Boy. Because it always settled on that night.

Time hadn't dimmed the memory, and a thousand thousand replays hadn't worn down its sharp edges. The Boy's sobs echoed through the in-between places of Hain's mind, bright and loud as the night they'd filled the Hoh. The panic riding every word, twisting the Boy's speech into something grotesque–a babbled plea for the Vrai not do it, oh Bless the End Day, please don't do it.

That death was on Hain, and he knew it. He felt it.

Dreariness clung to the edges of the world, and clouds stained the afternoon sky in hazy grey that blotted out the sun. An hour, maybe more, had passed since he'd watched the Vrai disappear, and the crumbling box where they'd gone looked as dead as the civilization that had fashioned it.

But they were still there. Still lingering inside. They had to be.

Hain knew the Vrai. Knew their way of thinking. In the months he'd spent in his personal war against them, he'd watched their white eyes scour the havenscape like locusts over crops. Violent. Merciless. Their touch was wildfire over drought-choked land, ruinous as tragedy. In the year since their invasion of Echo had become an occupation, they'd begun storming homes at random, plowing through doors as easily as their machine guns had scythed through the dregs of Echo's armies, its men still weary from his homeland's war with Sierra.

The Vrai were searching for something, that much Hain was sure about. But for what, not he, nor anyone else in the haven knew. The Vrai weren't exactly forthcoming with information, and the haven's humans were understandably reluctant to ask.

At first he'd taken this group of Vrai as just one more patrol, but as he'd watched them from his shroud in the trees he'd felt suspicion wriggle into the dark places of his imagination. These Vrai were focused. Centered. They trudged straight, their feet serving some invisible force drawing all things to itself.

Most humans missed these sorts of details, their attention snagged by the Vrai's ivory skin and eyes, by the wolf tattoos etched in black upon the back of each hand. Or else those same humans kept their eyes downturned from the Vrai, afraid what too much attention might earn them.

But not Hain. Even young as he was, Hain could track better than most of the Regent's men–an unexpected upside to the solitary life of a half-noble outcast. Solitude, it turned out, honed the senses.

And so he'd tracked the seven, watching from the shadows as their party slid from the trodden path and into the unbroken wilderness beyond the haven walls. He'd followed from a distance, letting his ranging skills guide him. A bent branch, a torn leaf–each detail leading him further east into the Hoh Wood. Further from home.

The wood had given way to a scar of old road, its rutted guts thick with disuse. A cottage stood nearby, wooden joists buckling under the weight of time, its empty window frame stripped of costly glass. The sickly scent of rotting apples rose from an overgrown orchard abutting the dwelling. On his knees, Hain's eyes found a scuff in the dirt. The soil felt cool between his callused fingers.