SAMPLE FROM NOCTURNE IN ASHES
PROLOGUE
THE SUMMER HE turned thirteen, he took his first life. His first human life.
He’d killed scores of animals. His mother had taught him that.
“We’re living off the fat of the land and sometimes that calls for killing,” He watched her work over their latest kill, her long hair tangled and dangling, her arms bloodied to the elbow in the belly of the deer.
He’d learned to heed that call.
He gathered what he needed, sharpened the blade, laid everything ready to hand, the small pile of sticks and stones, the strip of cotton fabric. A three-quarter moon peered down through the trees, smoothing a layer of silver over the crisped and browning leaves and waving grasses, gilding the rippled lake. The last of the summer warmth came now in brief snatches, lik
