Reign Shadowfell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 29

Reign Shadowfell turned twenty on the coldest morning of the year, and he spent it the way he spent most mornings — alone, walking the river that ran past the Nightshade gates. Sixteen years ago the caretakers had found him at those same gates, four years old, no name on him but the one stitched inside his coat. He had asked them a hundred times who left him there. They always looked at their hands and said nothing. He had grown up faster than the other children, stronger than boys twice his age. By twelve he could outrun the horses. By fifteen the other kids stopped inviting him to anything. He walked the river now because the river never flinched when he came near. A small imp stood in the path where the reeds thinned. It had blue hair, curled horns, and a tail that flicked behind it like a whip. It came up to Reign's knee and grinned like it had won something. "I've been watching you, Reign," it said. "Waiting for this day to finally come." Reign stopped. He had spent sixteen years asking questions that closed doors. This creature had opened with his name. "Who sent you?" he said. The imp tilted its head. "The ones who left you at that gate. They told me to find you the day you turned twenty. That's today." Reign looked back once at the roofs of Nightshade behind him, at the shuttered windows of the caretakers who had never answered him. Then he stepped off the path and followed the imp into the reeds.