The city of Duskmoor lay under a moon as pale as bone, wrapped in the uneasy stillness that comes before a storm. The streets were empty save for the wind, which carried with it the tang of scorched stone and the faint coppery scent of blood drifting still from the western quarter.
No torches burned in the poorer districts. Even the thieves who prowled the alleys had hidden themselves away, as if the Devil’s shadow could reach into their dens.
Kael did not sleep.
He stood beneath the broken arch of the western temple’s gates, staring at the shattered statue that still towered in the gloom. The jagged stone idol, once the pride of the priests, now leaned against the moonlight like a wounded giant. Beneath it, the temple’s altar was blackened with soot, the air thick with the lingering we
