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The final e the clouds orange and purple Froly tranquil yet swollen and ribbed It would rain within the hour A hu and snapping as the invisible rush shook the branches and a hail of dead leaves ca bark reported somewhere in the distance within thehowl The howling was joined by short fits of barking Tyrus heard the sounds, tightened his grip on his cloak, and started to run again If the stor to die
Tyrus of Kenatos was not a sray at the edge of his a with fever, and bleeding froashes all over his body, heIn all likelihood, he was delirious, and he recognized the possibility that he alking back toward the creatures that hunted him instead of away from them Every twisted, stunted oak looked the same, covered with moss and black with disease Mushroorass or wytherweeds Were they also affecting his er The acorns would be poison as well Everything in the Scourgelands was poisoned
Tyrus was a fool He had believed he was strong enough, wise enough, skilled enough to face the horrors past the northern borders and not only survive, but triumph He had convinced himself—and others—that it was their destiny to destroy the eneration How many cities had fallen victim to them? How many centuries had passed where once, twice, four ti the population of the races down to the few hunkering within fortresses and strongholds? It was his dreaue and stamp out its source, both root and branch, and end the vicious cycle of death and stagnation His cooal and shared in his vision And with hielands only to find theht in a maze of horrors, hunted and stalked and killed one by one They had not even breached the inner core of the maze of trees Nor had they seen the face of the enemy who commanded its precincts But it had seen them, and its fury was incalculable
The fetid air scorched Tyrus’s lungs as he ran He was exhausted It had been days since he had slept, days since he had tried to wander free of the maze of oak trees South was impossible East was i turned around, and found hi closer to the inner core of theit It did not matter how hard he tried to focus or concentrate The woods had a way of tricking hi him back the way he had come Back toward the death that hunted hih the woods, struggling to stay ahead of the creatures hunting hith faded Madness threatened him He almost welcomed it
In his h within the Paracelsus Tower in Kenatos A cup of honeyed tea in his hand, soothing a sore throat or war him before bed There were books to read—so many books to read Books written by the Vaettir on plants and spirit-life There were obscure tomes by the Cruithne on the proper construction of furnaces or the gemcraft that would trap a spirit and bind it to obey for ten years Evenor the gossip of kings and thrones in distant lands—of queens and killers and the diplos of a hundred generations of Paracelsus, eachthan the last Another twenty-five years and he would still not have read them all, but he desperately wanted to It was that desperation, in the end, that kept hi fear and accepting his approaching death
Tyrus of Kenatos—one of the wise ones of the city A Paracelsus without peer He wanted to laugh with bitterness He had ainst the best the island city had produced and had never found anyone who could win an argument with him save the Arch-Rike And yet Tyrus could say he had never lost an arguo It was al he had been to venture into the Scourgelands How foolish he had been How unprepared he was to face the wicked beings perelands There was blood on his hands So much blood They had trusted him and he had failed them
A snap froer Already he started to summon power to defend himself The fear was so sudden that he nearly abandoned the words that would tame it He realized with horror how close he had been to unleashing it untamed—an act that would have resulted in irrevocable s warned of it? Discipline Self-discipline It was the only way to stay sane