The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) by Everet Martins Page A

exact same look in his eyes on more than one occasion.
    She was pretty. She had straight teeth, a small nose, and plump lips ripe for kissing. She had innocent blue eyes, until they had burned with the light of the Dragon. She was someone he might have asked to join him for an ale. Maybe in another life, another world. She wore peasant’s clothes, threadbare and stained with the dirt of a hard day’s work. A black fly buzzed and landed on her parted lips. It sat there rubbing its tiny legs together, preparing itself for a feast of epic proportions.
    The people of Helm’s Reach weren’t easy prey, most having been graced with the touch of the gods. This girl was no exception. Juzo had only been grazed by her fireball. He didn’t want to think what his gut would’ve looked like had it struck true.
    Her upper arm lay propped against the sand-worn walls of a poorly built house, then draped across her chest at the elbow. The one-room house had a pencil roof, which sagged in the middle. Weeds bristled from the rotting shingles and a bird sang from a nest up there. It was practically its own forest, harboring insects of all kind basking in the late sun. The ill-fitting door creaked in the breeze, opened and closed for the seventeenth time. Thump. Eighteenth.
    The houses on the outskirts of the city were a ways off from each other. Not so far you couldn’t see another man, but not so close you could make out the look on his face. Juzo kept his eye sharp, keeping watch for curious eyes. He pretended to be investigating a split board, rapping against it with his fist, just in case there were eyes he missed.
    The sun hung low in the sky, pinking the tips of the far off Mountains of Misery. There was still snow up there. He had hoped to see it up close one day. He mindlessly tapped on the rotting board, wondered how long it would take to climb their peaks. They reached up further than his eye could see, stabbing through the creamy blanket of clouds above.
    The woman had lived alone here. Hopefully, no one would come looking for her any time soon. Juzo had studied her for a couple days. He watched when she left the shack, when she returned, who she met, what she bought. The thoughts sickened him. He belonged in a stockade to rot in the sun, not at the side of the Arch Wizard. He had become what his parents had warned him about. Someone had to do the dark work, he assured himself, but at what price?
    The girl moaned and rolled over onto her side, exposing the mess Juzo had made of her bluish neck. It would heal quickly enough. He felt the spark of her thoughts return, like a new star blossoming in his mind.
    Where am I? She thought. Why am I so thirsty? Her eyes found his, squinting like she just woke from a long nap. Do I know you, mister?
    Juzo closed his eyes and injected his thoughts. You’ll join the others. Walk west for about three miles, long before the Grey Riven Foothills. Stay on the wagon path out of the city, head north at the skull tower and you’ll find a cave. The others will find you there.
    What others?
    No more questions. Go, don’t be seen, speak to no one. Clean up that wound.
    She rose to her feet and started trudging through the loose dirt. Her big toe stuck out through a hole on a boot, the yellowed nail in dire need of a file. She absently wiped her neck, looked down at the blood, then back at Juzo. She sniffed her palm and wrinkled her eyes at the blood. She sniffed it again, her uncertain tongue lapped at the red smear. Her lips pulled into a smile and she started sucking at her palm.
    “Another one converted,” he said with a touch of pride. It was madness. What would the others think when they found out? Wasn’t it Baylan who had told him that it was prudent to do what had to be done, then plead for forgiveness after?
    “What was that?” She paused for a breath, her mouth now scarlet.
    Juzo’s heart skipped a beat, his fists knotting into balls. She shouldn’t have been able to hear his