A well-dressed man stood in the doorway, a small, knowing smile on his lips.

“Good to see you, Max,” he said, and held a spear out to me.

He looked so frustratingly familiar. I took the spear. My mind sifted through scattered, incomplete memories.

“Um… thanks,” I said, and the man’s smile faded slightly, as if something was confusing about my response.

“Imat?” Brayan’s voice came from behind me.

Imat. Sammerin Imat.

It clicked. I did know him. We’d both served in the Orders division of the military at the same time, though I’d only met him a handful of times— at least as far as I could remember.

I had no idea why he would now be showing up to help me from captivity. I’d been getting a lot of confusing help today. Not that I was about to question it.

“Brayan. Why are…” Sammerin shook away his questions. “Never mind. We only have a few minutes.” He grabbed another sword from the wall and tossed it to Brayan, who caught it midair.

“What was all that?” I asked, as Sammerin led us through the open door. A remarkably empty path led from the back of the building out to the wall, through an ajar gate, and into the forest beyond.

Too easy. All too easy.

And yet, as Sammerin and. Brayan set off down the path, I found myself hesitating for a reason I couldn’t explain. Like I had forgotten something crucial.

Sammerin glanced over his shoulder.

“She’s coming,” he said. “She’ll meet us out there.” She?

Does the name Tisaanah Vytezic mean anything to you?

“Quickly,” Sammerin hissed, pointing to the opening in the wall. We slipped through the night, hugging crates and walls until we reached the gate. The commotion had calmed, but guards still flocked to the other end of the compound.

What was all that?

We hit the wall, slipped through the gate, then stepped into the lush undergrowth of the forest.

You forgot something, a voice in the back of my mind still nagged. You forgot something very, very important.

We made it two steps into the forest when the shriek made me double over, knocking the breath from my lungs. It was a terrible sound, like agony distilled into a single tone.

I recognized it immediately.

I forced myself upright to see that the base had devolved into chaos. Just out of view, blue and white light flickered in the air, reflecting in puffs of smoke. Screams in Aran and Thereni mixed into a mangled blur.

I gripped my sword. Without my permission, my feet brought me two steps closer to the gate.

“What is that?” Sammerin joined me, his eyes darting around the base. “If that thing is back, we’d better go,” Brayan said.

“What thing?” Sammerin asked.

I didn’t move. A particularly loud screech split the air. A crash, and the roar of crumbling stone. A building on the other side of the base collapsed as a blast of blinding white light burst through brick.

The monster came roaring out of it.

Even when I was expecting it, the sight of it stunned me all over again. It looked even worse than it had when Brayan and I encountered it. Now, its face was almost entirely gone, the empty, light-drenched eye sockets melding with its missing jaw.

The creature stumbled from the wreckage wailing, inhuman limbs thrashing.

Sammerin drew in a sharp gasp of horror.

The smoke dissipated to reveal that the monster was chasing someone.

The figure glanced over their shoulder at us. It was a young woman. She had strange, dual-tone skin, Valtain-pale with a swatch of color over one side of her face. White hair streaked with black whipped in the wind. Through it, one green eye fell to me.

That stare skewered me through the chest. I couldn’t look away.

The moment broke. The woman had to turn, blocking with her sword, bracing herself for impact. That idiot was fighting this thing.

I didn’t hear Brayan shout my name. I was already running back into the carnage.