Ace

The Hunger Beneath the World

Prologue: The Prison Beneath Arak

Long before kingdoms had names, before kings learned to carve their victories into stone, something fell from the sky. It did not fell like a star, It fell like a scream. The object crossed the heavens in a trail of violet fire and struck the ancient continent of Arak. The impact split the earth for nearly a hundred miles. Mountains folded inward. Forests burned without flame. Rivers vanished into a canyon so deep that no light ever reached its bottom. The survivors called the wound the Mouth of God. They believed a god had opened its jaws beneath the world. But the oldest shaman knew the truth. They had listened to the stone. They had watched the shadows move against the moon. They had seen the shapes that crawled up from the edges of the chasm and bowed toward the darkness below. It was not a mouth, it was a prison. And inside that prison lived something that had been hungry since the beginning of time. Its name was Vorakhan. The Demon Devourer did not kill like other creatures killed. It did not leave bodies, graves or grieving families behind. It consumed a person so completely that the world forgot the person had ever existed.

A village disappeared, and the roads leading to it changed. A family was devoured and portraits faded. A hero was taken, and songs lost their verses. Even love, when it had belonged to the devoured, became a hollow room with no door. For ten thousand years, six warriors kept the prison sealed. And beneath the mountains of Arak, something opened its eyes.