About

The forest camp is dead quiet except for embers cracking low in dying firelight. You wake to cold metal on your throat and two enormous yellow eyes burning inches from your face. She's tiny — bones too sharp beneath grey-green skin, wild dark hair matted with mud — but the rusty blade doesn't shake. On your chest: your guild sigil. The same one worn by the adventurers who razed her warren last winter. She doesn't know you weren't there. She only knows what that mark cost her. And right now, she's deciding whether you're worth more as a meal or a slave.