Gorro sat on the ancient mossy boulder and let the forest breathe around him. Rabbits darted through the brush. A fox watched from the ferns. Birds cut across the gray sky. He was twenty-four now, a mercenary in blue armor, and he had spent fifteen years hunting one thing. His parents' faces drifted up in pieces. A smile. A hand. Nothing whole. A dragon's roar rolled through the trees. The Dragon King. Gorro's fingers tightened around the small blue gem in his palm. It was the only thing he had carried out of that night. Its dark center stared back at him like an eye that remembered what he could not. He slid off the boulder and walked deeper into the forest. The path narrowed. Branches scraped his armor. He kept the gem clenched tight, trying to force the missing pieces of that night to surface. They would not come. Three royal guards stepped out from the trees ahead. Their spears lifted. "Halt," the lead one ordered. Gorro stopped. He looked at each of them in turn. Three weapons. One narrow path. His careful plan had just met something it had not accounted for.

The three guards fanned out around Gorro, boots crunching on the forest floor. They took position against a triangle of tall, flat-topped boulders, using the stones as cover. Past the rocks, a thick bundle of dead twigs marked the edge of the clearing. Beyond that line waited the Dragon King. Gorro drew his sword. So much for a silent approach. The lead guard swung first. Steel met steel. Gorro held the block, then twisted free as the other two lunged. He ducked one spear and slid under the other. His boots found solid ground between the boulders. He breathed in, gathered his weight, and raised his blade high. "Tide Smasher," he said. The sword came down in one wide arc. The strike cut through all three guards before they could lift their weapons again. They dropped against the stones and did not rise. Gorro stood in the sudden quiet. Then the air behind the twigs went heavy. A shadow rose past the boulders, taller than the trees. Hot breath rolled over his back. The Dragon King had not fled. It had come to him.

The Dragon King stepped past the twigs and into full view. Eborsiks, lord of earth, smiled down at him. Gorro lifted his sword, but his arms shook. The dragon raised one claw and swept it through the ground beside him. The earth split open in a glowing red gash, lava bubbling up from the torn rock. Gorro stared into the heat. One hit. One hit would end him. He searched his memory for that night, for proof, for anything. Nothing came. Only the shape of the beast and the certainty he would die here. He turned and ran. His boots pounded over stone as Eborsiks laughed behind him, slow and pleased, then began to follow. Branches whipped his face. The dragon's steps shook the trees. Gorro kept his sword tight in his fist and did not look back. Fifteen years of planning, and the answer was simple: he was not ready. He would live, and he would return.

Gorro ran. His boots tore through the brush as Eborsiks crashed behind him. His mother's face flashed in his mind. Then his father's. Their smiles, frozen the way a child remembers. His foot caught a tangle of dry twigs and he went down hard. He rolled and looked up. Eborsiks stood over him, claw raised. Gorro closed his eyes and waited for the end. A roar of cold wind hit instead. A swirling dark aura slammed into the dragon's claw and shoved him back into the dirt. From the shadow stepped a knight in black armor, wide black wings spread wide. He did not look at Gorro. He turned and ran deeper into the trees. Eborsiks pushed up, snarled, and gave chase. The ground shook and went still. Gorro lay there, breathing. He pulled a small folded book from his belt, the one that held every backup he had ever written. His original plan was dead. His face was known. He had to start over. He pushed up and ran the other way, lungs burning, until the trees opened. Below him sat a small town of thatched roofs and stone paths. He knew the cottage near the edge. He had lived there with his grandparents after the night his parents died. Gorro wiped blood from his lip. He started down the hill. He would not hide. He would prepare again, here, where it all began.

Gorro stepped through the tall stone arch that marked the town's edge. The carved name above looked older than he remembered, and the banners hung from it were not ones he knew. Voices called out hellos from every side. Faces smiled at him like old friends. He kept his hood low and his hand near his belt. He could not tell which smiles were real. He stopped at a row of wooden stalls strung with bright awnings. They were new. The old market had been a single cart and a barrel. He bought two small potions from a merchant who studied his blue armor a beat too long. Gorro paid in coin and turned away fast. A woman screamed. Gorro dropped the potions into his pouch and ran. He found her pinned against a wall by two royal guards. Their gauntlets were on her arms. "Let her go," Gorro said. The guards looked at each other and laughed. The taller one drew his blade and swung. Gorro slipped the strike, drove his elbow into the man's throat, and dropped him. The second guard lunged. Gorro caught the wrist, twisted, and put him face down in the dirt. The woman ran. The guards groaned but lived. Gorro stared at the crests on their armor and felt the town close around him like a fist. He had been seen. He had been named by his own hands. He pulled his hood tighter and moved fast toward the small thatched cottage at the town's edge. His grandparents' door was the only door left he trusted. He would bar it behind him and plan his next move before the bells began to ring.

Gorro cut behind the old burial yard before he reached the cottage. Two more guards spotted his blue armor and rushed him through the carved stones. He ducked behind a tall weathered marker and let the first man come. One elbow, one twist, and the guard dropped at his boots. The second charged with his blade high. Gorro set his stance and waited. The guard stumbled mid-step and fell flat. An arrow stood out of his skull. The first guard lay the same way. Gorro looked up past the gravestones. A young woman stood between two markers with a bow still drawn. He stepped closer, slow, and saw the shape of a face he had not seen since he was a boy. "Cassidy," he said. She lowered the bow. In that single word the question of who he could trust in this town closed itself. He had his answer, and he had a witness — which meant the next move was no longer his alone.