Prologue: Run and hide, boy.
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There I was, hiding inside the blacksmith's bed trunk.
The blacksmith was called Grogan Drogba. Yeah. A mean name for a parent to give a newborn baby, I know.
Grogan was the son of a Dwarven woman from the mountains—legend never says which mountain—and one of the King's soldiers. Somehow he inherited his mother's Dwarven muscles and his father's height. Seven and a half feet tall.
Before Grogan was even born, his father broke his neck trying to sneak into the mountains to see his lover.
Grogan's mother turned bitter after that. She sent him to the Dwarven mines when he was three. By then he was as tall as the Dwarves, and stronger than most of them too. By eight, he was too big for the tunnels, so they moved him to the forges.
That's where he learned Dwarven forging secrets—and invented a few of his own.
He left the mountains at fifteen, because Dwarves don't treat humans kindly… even half-humans. He'd been our blacksmith for thirty years.
Anyway, it was late. I could hear him closing the workshop downstairs.
I'd been in his room for four hours.
When Grogan entered, he sat right on the trunk and pulled off his boots.
The smell hit me like a club.
I gagged and tried breathing through my mouth, but I swear I could taste the stink. It took all my strength not to vomit inside the trunk with the love letters and die of shame.
How the smell got inside the trunk, I still don't know.
Grogan stood up. He was about to open it.
Then the street exploded.
"Slavers! The slavers are here!"
Albert's voice. Unmistakable. He was the loudest man in town—drunk most evenings, singing about lost lovers like the whole world owed him an audience.
A woman screamed. Bells rang.
Those bells usually meant a fire.
Which meant houses were burning.
A few days earlier, a messenger had come to warn us about slavers from the south. Why didn't we prepare?
Because the messenger turned out to be none other than the Kingdom's most renowned madman: Zoire the Mad.
People laughed at him. Threw dung. Rotten food.
Well, it wasn't funny now. Wherever Zoire was, he was probably safe.
We were doomed.
Grogan shoved his boots back on and grabbed his axe.
Everyone knew Grogan hacked thieves with that axe. He was the finest blacksmith in the Kingdom of Rovena—everyone wanted his work, and some people tried to take it.
He ran out.
And I was finally alone.