Dran Z'vinn's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Dran Z'vinn knelt beside the dead lamp on his own patrol route and pressed two fingers to the oil. Still warm. The snuffer had come and gone within the hour. For three months Dran had chased this hunter of lights across the Moonlit Stretch, and every dark post pushed the eternal night closer. Only the reforged Sunburst Blade could banish that night. But he could not forge a weapon while blind, and the trail before him would go cold before the oil did. He found the footprints in the mud below the post. Small boots. They led toward the treeline and split, as if the snuffer wanted him to guess. Dran had no dog and no time to guess wrong. Guess wrong once and the cold rain would wash the trail to nothing. A voice came from the dark. "You're breathing on the tracks." Vessa Dre'kiir stepped from the trees. Her jade armor caught the last light, plate laid over plate. Dran had hired the half-serpent sellsword a week ago to guard the eastern posts. He did not trust her. She took any coin. But she read ground better than any man he had. "Two sets," Dran said. "Both fresh." Vessa crouched and touched the mud without disturbing it. "One's a decoy. Dragged branch, not a foot." She pointed left. "That one. The real one goes right, toward the ridge." Before Dran could move, a big man crashed out of the brush behind them, sword already drawn. Dark beard, blue eyes, a star buckle at his belt. Dran's hand went to his own blade. "Peace," the man said. "Bronan Goldhammer. I hunt the tyrant who runs these valleys. I saw your dark post and thought it his work." He looked at the split trail. "Someone put your light out and walked off. I hate men who work in the dark." Dran measured him and made a choice. He had one hour and three sets of eyes now. "Then help me follow him. He's climbing the ridge." They ran. Vessa led, reading the ground. Bronan smashed a path through the thorns. Dran kept the fading trail in sight. Rain began, fat drops striking the leaves. Vessa moved faster. "We lose it in five minutes." They topped the ridge. Below sat a hollow ringed with cold stone. In its center stood a crystal ball on a carved stand, its heart swirling with dark smoke. The snuffer knelt over it, hood back. A woman. She dropped something into the smoke, and Dran's dead lamp was not the only light gone out—every post along the ridge went black at once. "She's not snuffing them by hand," Dran said. "She's pulling them into that." The woman looked up, saw the three of them, and ran into the stone hollow. Dran chased. She reached the far wall and vanished through it. But she left the orb behind, still smoking, still warm to his touch. Dran lifted it. Now he knew how the lights died. And he knew what he had to break.