Chapter 41: Monster, Part 1

Cemal arranged the last body, flinching at the state of it. He was too tired and drained to cry any longer, but the urge was far from faded.

All he could see was her body. His poor little sister, brutally murdered, their humble home by the sea ransacked for hidden wealth they did not possess. Only a monster, he had said, could murder a little girl—and murder her for coin they did not have, had never had!

He had vowed to track the monster down, the contemptible soldier who had made nice in their little village, had fled in the dark after committing his heinous crime. The bastard had left no evidence beyond a shattered memory stone, but Cemal had figured him out anyway. He had shadowed the bastard from the little chain of islands he had once called home, from town to town across the continent, braving roads that only the desperate used.