“Do not be weak,” he hissed to the empty woods. “What you did was self-defense.”

  And even if it wasn’t… he was Bound. That made him an enemy. The man’s fleeting kindness was no different from the oats a farmer gave a sheep before the slaughter.

  Esteban sat at the foot of a towering elm, spinning the bloodied knife in his hand, as the forest buzzed with the drone of insects and the rustling of leaves. The rush that had carried him out of Oakhaven was fading, replaced by gnawing anxiety. He had now killed two of the Bound, which meant the search for him would intensify. He worried the parchments with his likeness would reach as far as Estoril, but he would have to risk it regardless. He could ration what little food he had stolen to sustain him for the week-long trip, but diverting to another city would add weeks to his journey. He would have to stick to his plan and deal with the consequences.

  As his heart slowed, the familiar presence of the Black Ring retook the stage. He closed his eyes and sank into the void of his mind’s eye.

  Something had changed.

  The burning number “1” had moved, settling roughly a third of the way around the circle.

  It acts like a sundial, he realized. The Essence of the Bound feeds it.

  He did the math in his head. He had killed Kris, then the Oakhaven Singler. Two lives moved the number a third of the way around.

  Four more lives to close the circle.

  What would happen then? he wondered. Would completing the circle make him stronger? The idea, as morbid as it was, excited him.

  Following the sound of rushing water, Esteban navigated his way to a small stream cutting through the woods. He knelt on the mossy bank and washed his hands, then he drank until his thirst was quenched.

  He looked down at his clothes. There was little hope they could be saved, but he stripped them off and submerged them in the water anyway. He scrubbed until the fabric began to fray, but the dark stains refused to lift.

  He sighed, wringing them out, then setting the once-white fabric, now a mottled sickly pink, on a sun-drenched rock. Shivering, he sat in the stream and washed the blood and dirt from his skin.

  Unless he wanted to walk into Estoril looking like a butcher, he had to find another town and steal some clothes before he got there. He would do it at night and pray he wasn’t caught.

  If I can even make it out of these woods, came the grim thought.

  During his frantic escape, he had pushed deeper into the forest than he had intended. He wasn’t sure he could retrace his steps. He peered through the dense canopy, searching for the afternoon sun. He would have to use it to keep his bearing north.

  The weather was mild, and he did not want to linger until his clothes dried, so he draped them over his shoulder, along with his sack of food, and began moving north.

  Navigating the thick undergrowth wearing nothing but his shoes was an ordeal. Thorned shrubs tore at his bare legs, and he tried to avoid what he could, slashing a path with his knife when he couldn’t. But cuts soon crisscrossed his skin, stinging with every step.

  He pressed on, determined to cover as much ground as possible before dark. But plowing through the forest blindly carried risks far deadlier than thorns. He was ever at risk of getting too close to an Echo portal.

  The Culling Houses had mapped all known portals in the dominion, and Esteban wished he had one of those maps. He’d seen them before, however, and he did remember that Ardan was a rare pocket of safety outside any portal’s influence. He recalled that several portals surrounded the northern city, with some of their ranges overlapping.

  A strange sensation washed over Esteban as he made his way through the forest. It started as pressure behind his eyes, then shifted to a subtle tug deep in his chest. It was the Ring silently calling to him, urging him off his current path, veering eastward.

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  It was leading him somewhere. His chest tightened with a sense of unease, and he considered ignoring the Ring’s call. He had a plan, and walking blindly into the unknown was not a part of it. But he was alone, and the ring was his only guide. He surrendered to the sensation, following the invisible tether.

  The path the ring chose was not an easy one. It dragged him through weaving paths, through the heart of the undergrowth, until he reached a steep, muddy mound. He planted his foot into the slippery ground, digging his fingers into the wet earth to keep from sliding back, and pushed himself up the slope.

  He crested the ridge, breathless, but as he shifted his weight to descend, his footing gave way. He slipped, sliding down, his back scraping against rocks and thorny shrubs, until he hit the bottom with a loud thud. He groaned, checking his body for any serious injuries, before forcing himself back to his feet.

  As he followed the Ring’s guidance, the forest began to change. The vibrant green canopy gained a strange crystalline translucency. Sunlight shone through the crystalline foliage, casting rainbows onto the ground and trunks of trees. It danced peacefully with the breeze. The grass under his feet had turned to delicate glass that crunched under his steps. The buzzing of insects grew quiet, until it eventually stopped, leaving an eerie stillness in its place.

  He had entered a portal’s Zone of Influence. He had never been near one before, but it was common knowledge that the portal affected the area around it for many miles. In the stories he heard, the Zones were places of death and decay. This was not the rotten hellscape he had imagined whenever portals were mentioned. This was beautiful, in its own strange way.

  The guiding sensation stopped as abruptly as it had begun, releasing the tug in his chest.

  He looked around, examining the scene.

  A desiccated corpse lay among the twisting roots of a large tree. Esteban approached carefully, kneeling next to the body. It was a man dressed in leather hunting garb. His face was frozen in a silent scream, with his mouth open unnaturally wide. His grey skin clung tightly to his eyeless skull.

  Esteban had never seen a victim of the Echoes before, but what happened to them was common knowledge as well. It was said that an Echo did not simply kill its mark. It sucked them dry, consuming both flesh and soul, and leaving them as a crumbling husk. The withered remains before him left no doubt as to the truth of those stories.

  He swallowed, looking back at the body. With shaking hands, he knelt in the dirt and reached for the dead man’s boots.

  The body was stiff, and Esteban had to brace his foot against the corpse’s hip as he yanked. Bones, far more brittle than he expected, cracked as the boots pulled free. It was gruesome work.

  The leather jerkin was useless, torn in three jagged slashes as if struck by the claw of a large beast. The leggings were intact, and so was the heavy wool cloak spread at the man’s side. Feeling sick, he pulled the leggings off as fast as he could, before crawling next to the man’s shoulders and untying his cloak.

  Esteban gathered the hunting garb and donned it quickly. He stepped into the trousers before lacing up the leather boots. The leggings were loose on his slender frame, but he cinched them tight. He draped the cloak over his shoulders, leaving his chest bare to the cool air, and stood up.

  All of a sudden, white flame erupted, carving a line of alien script into the surface of the Black Ring.

  Esteban froze, his breath catching in his throat as he focused on the void within his mind. He was illiterate, unable to read even the simplest merchant ledger, yet the text was as clear as spoken word.

  You trespass where the veil is thin. A manifestation of terror regards your presence. Shatter the nightmare. Consume its Essence.

  As the meaning settled, a second, more familiar, message seared itself into his mind. Esteban bit his lip, tasting blood and stifling a scream.

  Covenant Sealed.

  He exhaled, bracing a hand against the rough bark of a tree. Straightening up, he processed what had just happened.

  He had been given a task. The wording was obscure, but the command was clear. He was within the range of an Echo portal, and to his horror, a monster was nearby. And it had seen him.

  He raised his knife, scanning the dense foliage for any sign of the beast. He saw nothing at first, until the shrubs to his left burst with movement.

  He pivoted to face the threat, pointing his knife in its direction, fighting to steady his shaking hand.

  There is nothing to fear. This is the path you’ve chosen, knowing it could only end in victory or death.

  The Echo emerged from the brush. It was a reptilian thing, about eight feet long. It stood on four stumpy, muscular legs, its stomach inches from the ground. A long snout protruded from a serpentine face, and its eyes were orbs of obsidian black. It was covered in scales of dark violet, and the rays of the waning sun danced as they passed through its translucent scales, creating the illusion that the creature blurred as it moved. Triangular ridges of bone, the same color as its scales, arranged themselves in jagged disharmony along its spine, from its neck, all the way down its long tail.

  It tasted the air with a forked tongue, and every time it flicked out, a dry crackling noise echoed through the clearing, like thunder hiding in its chest.

  Esteban was not a fighter. He never learned the way of the sword. He was a scavenger, a laborer who dug through Fallen ruins for artifacts the Valyr could use.

  He didn’t think the Echo cared about any of that.

  “Come then,” he said, his knuckles turning white around the hilt of his knife. “Let’s get this over with.”