The old woman stood alone upon the cliff’s edge, where the grass grew in brittle tufts and the wind moved softly through the pines. Below her, the valley was blanketed in moonlight, its trees tall and crooked, the rustling of leaves rising and falling like the breath of the world. The hills rolled lazily into one another, wooded folds stitched with stone and stream. Granite faces jutted from the earth like forgotten kings, silently watching, wondering what had become of the world.

  The full moon hung low in the sky, just beginning its slow crawl across the trunk of the Overtree. Pale and grey and monstrous, the cosmic tree rose up out of the infinite darkness, beyond the mountains, beyond the edge of the world, beyond the reach of men. Its trunk looked broken and black in places, as though it had been struck by lightning. Its branches curled and forked like the fingers of some dying beast, twisted and endless. No one alive had ever touched it, or stood in its shadow, for it did not take root in this world. Its light was cold and mysterious, borne of an energy men would never know or command.

  Tonight, the Arm of Haephem, largest branch of the Overtree, reached out across the black sky, while the tree’s towering trunk fixed itself above Mount Torith, at the northern tip of the valley. It was the ancient sign that the year had turned, that the great wheel had completed another grim circle, and the world had endured. In the village below, they would be drinking to that, as was tradition. The music played louder and wine flowed thicker on the last night of the year. But the old woman found it hard to celebrate these days.

  For more years than she could remember, she had climbed this hill to mark the new year, to look upon the celestial event and bask in its wonder, to listen to the rhythms of sky and wind and light, and wait for them to whisper some omen, some warning. Tonight, she could swear they whispered death, though she could not say why.

  Perhaps the air had a staleness to it, an emptiness that did not belong to the valley. She could taste it on her tongue, metallic and sour. It came from the east. Always from the east. The Dying Lands , they called them, those shadowed places beyond the mountains. No maps marked them. But these last year ten years it was as if they were creeping closer, seeping through cracks in the valley’s granite walls like a sickness.

  An evil breeds beyond the eastern rim, she would say at council meetings. A disease at the heart of the world hungers for our blessed lands, our sacred treasures.

  But they dismissed her warnings as the ramblings of a mad crone, too superstitious, too old. It was true, she was the eldest in all the village, but her mind was still sharp. The Shield had seen to that. Nine centuries it had burned at the valley’s heart, humming with soft green light, healing the land and all those who dwelt in it. It had kept the soil rich, the trees fertile, the hearts of men strong. But the Shield’s magic could only reach so far, and it could not stop the spreading of wounds that festered beyond its reach.

  The moon had passed in front of the Overtree now, continuing its journey across the black sky. The trees bark glistened faintly, silver grooves and knots you could almost imagine climbing, all the way up into Overealm, where the angels lived and the heroes of old feasted in halls of light.

  Then she saw it, just for an instant.

  Down below, a patch of branches seemed to part. A flicker. A glint. Something pale moving between the trees. She blinked, rubbed her temples, and leaned closer. She squinted hard, scanning the darkness…

  But nothing was there. Just fireflies, she guessed.

  With a low sigh, she drove the tip of her staff into the ground, its soft soil and black, warm from the Shield’s green abundance, and turned from the cliff. Below her, the faint glow of torchlight spilled up from the village, where food and drink and song awaited. Laughter echoed faintly up the slope. The celebration was already in full swing.

  She took a deep breath, looked back at the Overtree’s pale silhouette one last time, and began her descent.

  The path down the hill was older than the village it overlooked, worn into the slope by a thousand feet and a thousand years. The trail was steep, and the moonlight spilled over her shoulder as she walked, painting shadows between the trees. The ground was soft beneath her bare feet, springy with moss and fallen leaves. She moved slow and sure, one hand wrapped around the gnarled shaft of her staff, the other pressed to the small of her back. A cold wind whispered through the pines and the scent of sap and old rain filled her nose. Crickets chirped to one another in their endless, ceaseless tongue. An owl hooted once. Somewhere an elk let loose its mournful cry.

  What will the new year bring? she thought. For the valley? For the tribe? For this old bag of bones?

  She had circled the Overtree one hundred and sixteen times. She had seen the sky shift from Haephem to Lirion to Calior during the warmer months. She had watched the Arm of Valius rise over the northern ridge at the start of Spring, the Arm of Makiel straddle the moon during the peak of Winter. Each branch had its name. Each one its season.

  And if it’s my last, will there be anyone remind them of their mission? To remind them of the reason we are here?

  The trees began to thin as she neared the base of the hill, their silhouettes blurred by firelight rising up from the village. Sparks danced against the sky, tiny embers pulled aloft on the wind. Smoke mingled with the scents of roasting meat and boiled root. She could hear the flutes now, twee loo leeee, and the drums, bom bom bom, steady and driving. Children’s laughter drifted through the trees. Somewhere, someone sang drunkenly, off key.

  As she reached the treeline, the first dwellings came into view, simple things, timber and thatch, ringed in charms and wind-chimes. Fires blazed in the courtyards. Men in feathers and facepaint staggered through the crowd, mugs aloft, howling like mad wolves, singing songs whose origins were long forgotten. Children darted between their legs, chasing one another with wooden swords and handfuls of fruit. Women in furs and painted silks passed bowls of stew from fire to fire, laughing. The Great Hall loomed beyond, in the distance, wide and long and thatched with blackthorn.

  And there, in the heart of the village, stood the Shield.

  A disc of angelic steel, pale as bone, emblazoned with runes, a five-pointed star etched into its surface by immortal hands. The spell-forged round and its dragonskin strap were unbreakable. It hovered above its stone plinth, humming low and constant, shimmering in a soft green haze. Flowers lay heaped at its base, offerings of thanks, of reverence. Little charms made of bone and bark hung from the stone, spinning in the wind. It cast an emerald glow across the whole village, like the breath of spring. Where the Shield shined, the land flourished. The game were plentiful. The fruit burst fat and ripe on the vine. The streams ran clear and full of trout the size of a man’s leg. All of it, every leaf, every child, every breath, was guarded by the ancient magic that radiated from its ancient white metal.

  It had floated there for nine centuries, half a man’s height above its stone plinth, humming softly, untouched by wind or time. It did not rust. It did not fade. The old woman remembered when her father first told her what it was.

  “Forged in Overealm,” he had whispered, his eyes wide with reverence. “By God Himself. So long as it remains, the valley lives. So long as it casts its spell, we endure.”

  She approached the Shield, passing under the arch of old bone and carved wood that marked the village’s center. The air changed here. Warmer. Rich with the smell of roast root and smoked meat, spiced ale and baked apples. There were people everywhere. She passed through them like a shadow, weaving between drunk men and shrieking children, through songs half-remembered and tales half-true.

  The pale disc spun gently in the air, casting shimmers of green firelight across the faces of those who passed it by. She pressed her hand against the ancient stone, gazing up at the ancient artifact. She could feel its hum, vibrating through her arm and into her bones, as if knitting her flesh and marrow. Even her breath came easier within the Shield’s reach. The vines on the plinth had begun to bloom again, out of season. Tiny white flowers curled beneath her fingers. She traced them once.

  It protects us, she thought, and we protect it. For that was the task entrusted to us by Karzo himself. Then she moved on.

  She limped past the bonfires and the storytellers, past the clay huts with their woven roofs, past the grey-furred heads of rabbits hung in tribute, past men slouched against stones with wine on their breath and women in their arms. The Great Hall loomed closer, its beams blackened with time, its doors thrown wide. A temporary stage had been built before it, a great wooden platform draped in linen and garlands, flanked by torches and carved poles.

  Here the village began gather in full. The stage had been thrown together from old lumber and fresh bark, its rough planks groaning under the weight of men running back and forth, tossing costumes around, hoisting up a black curtain. A hundred bodies or more were now crammed onto the benches and stumps and stones that ringed the clearing, some seated, most not.

  The old woman moved unnoticed through the press of bodies, her cloak brushing the knees of children, the staff in her hand thumping with each step. She made for the stump they had left her, a worn old thing, smoothed by seasons of celebration, and waved away the drink and cheer offered her by drunkards who would forget by dawn what they had even said.

  She sat, adjusted her bones, and settled in to watch.

  Across from her, in the center of the crowd, a giant of a man raised a cup and downed it in one gulp. Chief Tarlan, thick as a stump and strong as a bear, let out a victorious roar. His companions, Baggard with his crooked nose, Kaethan with the scarred eye, and Gil, shorter than most of the women, cheered him on with pounding fists and foul jokes.

  The warrior, Vehryn, sat apart, under the tallstone carved with angelic runes too ancient for most to read. He held his youngest daughter in one arm, and his wife Carina leaned into his shoulder, whispering something into his ear. He laughed, a soft sound, with the same handsome grin the old woman remembered from childhood. His hair was dark as ravenwing, his arms toned and strong, his face unchanged by time. He bore the star no longer, yet still its trace clung to him. A deep exhaustion that could only come from a century of duty.

  How happy he must be to finally age, she laughed. If only I could say the same.

  Then there was Gunther, the great white rabbit, larger than any bear in the valley. He lounged near the tree line, limbs splayed and eyes half-lidded. Children had made a game of him, scrambling up his side, tumbling down his back, tying garlands of pine and ribbon through his fur. The rabbit bore it all with silence, his glowing green eyes half-lost in thought or memory or both. Only his long ears twitched, ever alert. The old woman knew better than most what Gunther was. Guardian. Bound to whoever bore the star and as ancient as the village itself.

  What a strange thing, she mused. To live for centuries, yet be unable to tell its tales.

  And far in the back, leaning against the wall of the old forge, was the boy, Aden. His shaggy hair caught the firelight. His eyes, golden, radiant, glimmered like two setting suns, watching the crowd with a caution too old for twelve summers. Tyla stood at his side, her arm twined through his. Her face was flushed with youth, her beauty unspoiled by worry. They whispered. He laughed. She touched his hand.

  The old woman clicked her tongue. Foolish girl, she thought. She knows he cannot marry. The starbearers walk alone. Still, she could not help but smile at their innocence.

  The crowd began to hush. Torches flared. Four men knelt before the central fire pit, hands moving in practiced rhythm, striking stretched hides with the flat of their palms, one beat at a time.

  The play was beginning.

  From behind the curtain, a single man stepped into the light, his face streaked with soot and ochre, his chest bare beneath a cloak of stitched feathers. He raised a hand to the crowd and stomped his heel into the wooden floor, once, twice, thrice, thunk thunk thunk. The drums fell silent.

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  A chorus of flutes rose in the stillness, too doo leeeee. Then the man cried aloud, his voice shrill and clear.

  “Before there was the world… there was the Overtree.” From behind the black curtain an old fallen tree, painted white, was hoisted up with some difficulty. Men unseen groaned under the effort, trying to keep the thing vertical. The audience laughed.

  The narrator shot them a serious look, hushing them up, before continuing. “The Everdark was vast and empty, and so the Overtree dropped its golden leaves into its emptiness and they blossomed into stars.” He gestured to the sky. Behind him, villagers in crude masks danced about with sticks wrapped in cloth and painted silver. “A thousand, thousand lights…” They spun in clumsy circles, mimicking the celestial dance.

  “Every night, the Creator would gaze down from his throne in Overealm, and smile, for all was bright, and all was good.” A man stepped forward, draped in pale grey rags, branches attached to his arms, a great wooden disk strapped to his back. The children gasped as he moved through the light like a ghost.

  God, the old woman mouthed to herself. The Planter of the Tree. He climbed down from the stage, circled the fire once, then vanished again into shadow. Children began to creep closer, eyes wide.

  “But far beyond the Overtree,” the man went on, pacing now, “deep inside the Everdark, lurked the Nothing, the enemy of creation.” A new figure emerged, robed in black sailcloth, crowned with horns made of twisted branches. His mask was a blank void, smeared in ash, without eyes. He stood at the edge of the firelight and did not speak.

  “The Nothing hated the stars. Hated the light. For where the light walked, the Nothing could not follow.” The narrator waved his arms dramatically. “So the Nothing gave birth to a demon, a beast born of darkness, black as night, and it sent him forth to devour the stars, to extinguish their light forever, so that the Nothing could reign supreme.”

  The man in black raised his arms, and others rushed forward with drums and clashing sticks, making a thunder of noise. From behind the stage, a crude demon-puppet appeared, long-necked, black-scaled, with painted fangs and wings of leather. It roared with the help of a bellows, drawing laughter from the crowd. His belly was a great sack stuffed with straw, bloated and bulging, trailing smoke. The two men maneuvering it snarled and spun the puppet in circles. Children giggled. The contraption turned to snap its jaws at a group of girls near the front, who screamed in delight. A few of the old men chuckled into their mugs.

  “One by one the demon swallowed the stars… and with each bite the beast’s belly swelled and he grew in size.” The demon roared, chasing the star dancers one by one, falling to the ground and then rolling off the stage as they were caught. “He swallowed star after star, and grew and grew, until he was the size of the Overtree, and there was no light left but that of the Sun…” The demon reared up. “…and then he swallowed that too.” One of the actors tossed a golden cloth into the air. It vanished into the beast’s open jaws. The big round lantern lighting the stage suddenly dimmed. The crowd gasped.

  “With no light to cast it out, the Nothing came down to Daeradyn and ruled as its king… The crops all died, the animals froze to death in their caves, and the people shivered and starved.” The actors all rubbed their eyes and wailed from behind the curtain.

  The old woman rested her chin atop her staff and closed her eyes. She had heard this story more than a hundred times. She knew every word of the narration, every torch-lit cue and smoke-powder flash. Yet each year it felt heavier. This was no child’s tale. This was history, sealed in rhythm and rhyme, an echo of a world long gone, full of bloodshed and despair, one that no man in the valley could possibly imagine.

  The narrator continued, “But God loved Daeradyn…” lifting his arms and hushing the crowd. “So he plucked out his own eye, and cast it down into the darkness…” A painted star-shaped lantern was lowered from the trees on a rope. “And it ignited into the brightest star there ever was… the last star in the cosmos.”

  A pause. And then, drums again. Faster now.

  “It fell to Daeradyn…” A burst of smoke. The star-shaped lantern was lit. It flickered with orange flame. “…and was found by a boy.” Another burst of smoke, green and gold. A small boy stepped forward. He was slight and nervous, but walked proud. His face had been painted with stars.

  From the crowd, the children shouted his name in delight: “Karzo! Karzo!”

  “Karzo!” The narrator confirmed, his arms raised, hands shaking. “The last light!”

  The little boy reached up and caught the star-shaped lantern in his hands, then raised it high.

  “Karzo forged the star into the five radiants!” Colored powders were thrown into the bonfire as each radiant was announced, the flame changing hue, casting colored shadows upon the stage. “Truth!” The star-faced boy tossed a rolled red cloth into the air and in unfurled over the crowd as the fire burst into a puff of crimson. “Vision!” The boy brought his hands to his forehead then tossed two bolts of purple cloth towards the audience, as if they sprang from his eyes.

  The old woman closed her eyes as the colors swirled. She had seen these lights before, not in plays, but on battlefields. In visions. In dreams.

  “Courage!” The boy wrapped himself in a bolt of yellow cloth and squatted down and flexed his muscles dramatically before flinging the fabric over his head and the fire burned yellow. “Grace!” The actors wrapped two blue ribbons around the boys ankles and he jumped off the stage, sprinting in a circle around the crowd before returning to his position. And finally, “Love!” The boy, now panting, brought a closed fist to his chest, and several little girls brought ferns and flowers and leaves and adorned them to his costume as a plume of green smoke rose into the air.

  He gathered up the colored bolts of cloth he had thrown about the stage, then danced around in circles, letting the fabrics flow as he called out the five lights, swirling like a kite in the wind, full of color and fury. The crowd clapped and cheered. Children mirrored his movements down below, shrieking with delight.

  The narrator raised a hand and continued. “The demon raged against Daeradyn’s young hero, for it hated the light, it hated all things pure and brave and beautiful!” The big black puppet appeared again and charged at the little boy. Flapping and bellowing, it snapped its jaws while the boy ducked and parried, his colored cloths flailing about.

  “But the demon was no match for the five lights of Karzo’s star! The hero called forth a sword of fire!” The star-faced boy reached offstage and pulled a wooden sword painted orange and red and gold from behind the curtain. They clashed, clumsily, awkwardly. “He cut the beast open, from neck to navel!” The boy leapt and turned and struck the demon’s belly, which split open in a puff of glitter and smoke. The villagers howled. The two men holding up the puppet wailed and convulsed. “The sun popped out of its stomach and Karzo returned it to the sky, giving life back to Daeradyn and its people.”

  A circular lantern was lit again and hoisted into the air far above the stage.

  “And so the Nothing was forced to flee back to the shadows beyond the Overtree from whence it came. Karzo then cut the demon’s corpse into six pieces, and scattered them to the far corners of Daeradyn, so that the monster would never return.” Finally, boy disassembled the puppet of black cloth and straw and tossed the pieces to the left and right of the stage. The head landed in the dirt before a pack of children and a girl jumped back, squeaking.

  “But the Nothing is clever, and will never stop looking for way to snuff out the light. So we—the children of Karzo—keep the Sword, the Shield, and the Star safe, always prepared for the day in which the world will need Karzo again!”

  The crowd roared, whistles, clapping, voices chanting the hero’s name. The drumming began anew. Faster. Wilder. The energy of celebration was ready to burst. But the narrator extended his arms and patted the air, hushing the crowd. The stage dimmed again, and a line of eight villagers now approached the front, each bearing an unlit torch as tall as a man.

  “Behold,” the narrator called out, “the starbearers, chosen by God, the protectors of Karzo’s light!”

  “Martar, the second to bear the star,” he said, as the first torch on the left was lit.

  “Valum, the third.” Another torch went up.

  “Tavian.” Each name brought another flame. The fire reflected in the people’s eyes, some wet with tears, some glassy with wine. Others lowered their heads solemnly.

  “Walton. Fayorn,” he continued, torches lighting. “Harkos. Kartheus. Jaethos…” The drums stilled. For a moment, all was quiet. The narrator put his head down and raised his arms. “May they rest in the golden fields of Overealm.”

  Then he turned to the left. “Vehryn,” he whispered, a playful smirk on his face, “tenth to bear the star.”

  The warrior stood, grinning through his strong jaw, passed his youngest to his wife, and kissed her brow. He wore no shirt and the great scar across the weathered skin of his stomach was displayed for all to see. He climbed the stairs to the stage slowly, and the people rose to their feet, clapping and calling his name. “Vehryn! Vehryn!” His smile turned quiet, humble. But his eyes, they were not young eyes. They had seen too much.

  “And lastly…” the narrator grinned, “…he who bears the star today.”

  A hush.

  “Aden!” he thundered, drawing out the name long and low, shaking his hands as he gestured towards the back of the crowd.

  The old woman looked over her shoulder. Slouched against the wall of the forge, Aden let his shaggy hair fall over his glowing eyes, pretending as if he could not hear his name being called. Tyla, her arm curled through his, smiled and gave him a tug. The boy looked at her, blankly, but did not move.

  Then someone shoved him. A roar of laughter.

  He stepped out from the shadows, head low, face flushed. Children threw petals as he walked, white, red, gold. The villagers cheered, stomped, shouted his name. Aden! Aden!He ascended the stage and stood beside Vehryn, eyes wide in the firelight. The old warrior put his hand around the boy’s, and raised both their arms towards the sky. Someone thrust Aden a horn of ale, and he lifted it awkwardly in salute.

  The narrator’s voice rose above the noise.

  “Tonight we celebrate! Let the ravens hear us beyond Mount Torith! Let the wolves hear us all the way in the Forbidden Forest!”

  The cry was taken up by a hundred voices.

  “Karzo died that we may live! Let him hear us from the highest branch of the Overtree! Let him know we remember! Let him hear that his legacy lives on!”

  The village roared. The fire surged higher. The music began again. The old woman watched as Aden stood beside Vehryn, blinking in the moonlight. She smiled. But then came a sadness, slowly, and she wondered, Does he know the life that awaits him? The burden of his duty? The loneliness of the starbearer?

  Aden’s shell cracked and he finally began to laugh as he looked around at the debauchery and excitement. He was still brushing petals from his hair when Tyla caught his hand and pulled him down into the crowd. The boy leaned in to speak, but the girl said something first, and whatever it was made him blush. She took his hand and tugged, gently at first, then again, pulling him through the crowd, past the laughter and dancing and spilled drink, toward the footbridge at the eastern edge of the village.

  The old woman watched them vanish into the dark.

  She tried to shake her head disapprovingly, but it turned into a grin. Let them have their midnight kisses and their whispered promises. Let them taste life before duty claims them. She gazed up at the moon, just starting to dip behind the western peaks. Aden’s burden will span a hundred years. What’s one more night?

  The drums were still pounding behind her, loud as storm clouds. Somewhere, someone was singing in a crooked, drunken voice. The smell of roasted meat mingled with pine smoke and sweat. The actors had removed their masks and now drank freely, paint still smeared on their skin.

  She remembered nights like this. Long ago. In the days before her husband’s passing, before her bones ached and her sight blurred when the wind blew wrong. She had danced once too, by moonlight, barefoot, with flowers in her hair. She had known the warmth of a man’s arms, the soft drunken laughter of shared youth.

  Her husband’s face passed before her in that moment, still clear as day. The strong jaw and brown eyes, the gap in his teeth. May the angels keep his soul, she thought. And for a moment, the ache in her chest was greater than the one in her knees.

  Then came the scream.

  High. Piercing. Shattering the night like glass. The old woman’s head snapped up.

  Another scream followed. This one cut off midway.

  Tyla.

  Her heart lurched. The staff was in her hand before she knew it, and she was rising to her feet. Her eyes locked onto the bridge, dark and narrow, leading eastward across the river and into the forest. Shapes moved in the shadows. Not children. Not lovers. Darker things.

  Then something whistled through the air, striking the man beside her. He dropped to the ground, mug slipping from his limp fingers, ale spilling into the dust. Another bolt thunked into a red-headed youth mid-step, the shaft stuck in his throat. His goblet dropped. He staggered, blood gurgling through his fingers, and collapsed into the mud.

  The drumming stopped. A gasp rippled across the crowd. Cries of confusion turned to shrieks. Then chaos. Children panicked. Women scattered. Drunken men tried to rise, stumbled, fell. The old woman’s staff dropped from her hands as she tried to maneuver the sudden press of bodies.

  More arrows. One after another. Men crumpled. Women cried out. A single jar of oil, flung from the woods, shattered in the central pit, sending flames roaring up into the stage. The actor playing God was swallowed in heat, his cloak catching instantly. He ran, screaming.

  And then they came. Out of the dark, charging over the eastern bridge. Beasts clad in scraps of metal and boiled leather. Some wore antlers, others jagged masks of bone. Their eyes glowed orange like molten steel, lit from within by madness or magic or worse. A few carried torches. Others nets.

  The first of them reached the crowd and began cutting people down. One grabbed a man by the hair and slammed him into a tree. Another gutted a youth where he stood. A child vanished beneath the dispersing crowd, not seen again. Torches were flung onto the thatched roofs of the smokehouse, the council room, the forge, and they burst ablaze. Screams rose like a tidal wave. The old woman saw Vehryn spring from the crowd, pulling his wife and daughters behind him, his body aglow with the remnants of the star’s old grace. But he had no sword.

  The old woman stood frozen, mouth gaping. It was happening. The death she had smelled for years. The rotten wind from the east. The warning no one had heeded. The Dying Lands had come for them.

  The orange-eyed beasts slashed and chased and grabbed with unnatural strength and speed, laughing as if it were some kind of game. The men of the village tried to stand their ground, with branches, with stools, with iron pans. Two or three managed to find a butcher’s knife or a hunting spear. But each were cut down like a child’s dolls. Five on one, ten on one, it did not matter. None could withstand the unnatural ferocity and speed of these monstrous intruders.

  The Great Hall was burning. The stage had collapsed. The Overtree had vanished behind smoke. The Shield shimmered wildly now, green light pulsing hard like a heartbeat under strain. It was humming louder. But it was not protecting anyone. Its magic could heal the land, but not stop a sword.

  A girl ran past the old woman shrieking, hair aflame, before the crone brought her down, and patted out the fire with her cloak. “Where?” the girl choked, tears streaming down her face, red with pain and black with soot. “Where is he? ” The old woman scanned the eastern bridge. The trees. The darkness. Nothing.

  A man staggered in front of her holding his guts in. Goats bolted through the clearing, knocking down a boy in their panic. The Shield pulsed harder, its emerald shimmers rising and falling, flickering like dying flame. It was trying. Trying to heal. Trying to hold. But it was too late.

  Bodies littered the grass. Men she had taught as children lay in puddles of blood, clutching their wounds. Fires raged from the roofs of every dwelling. The air was thick with smoke and screams and the copper tang of blood.

  The girl beside her cried his name again and again. “Aden,” she whispered. “Aden, help us…”

  But the starbearer was nowhere to be found.