Leoden was an evil miracle.

  Her brief glimpses of the human world had not prepared her for this nightmare of stone. Nothing could have. While she moved unseen amidst the stone buildings high as mountains, she would often have to stop and regain her composure. How could people live like this? Civilization had enslaved them, and they had built their own prison. And it was growing. She shuddered at the thought of the day when all the world was locked in a cage like this. If King Eld could see what had become of his world, would he have regretted building it?

  At least food was plentiful.

  So much was thrown away and she never had to know hunger which made the beggars all the more horrifying. There was so much to go around but even then, so many were cast out. You could have housed and clothed everyone in the city so why were people left to starve and freeze? What crimes had they committed to deserve such a bleak fate? In her home, the tribe took care of everyone. In Leoden usefulness was squeezed out of you and when there was nothing more left to take, you were thrown out to die. The cruelty seemed to be part of the city’s design.

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  The beggars only dared to come out at night. To scavenge for survival.

  But even when everyone was asleep, the beggars could not walk freely. She had seen their tormentors out and about during the day. The men in their blue coats and steel helmets, armed with clubs and guns. The police they were called, and they seemed to take particular pleasure in tormenting those who could not fight back. She watched from the roof how to policemen dragged a beggar tormented by demons inside his head to a dark alleyway and getting ready to bash his skull open with their clubs to see what would fall out. At first, she tried to cut them with her mind. A trick her deceased mentor had explained to her, but she still hadn’t mastered.

  Instead, she took out her bow and unleashed an arrow.

  One of the policemen gasped when an arrow pierced his back and pushed all the air out of him. The other could only stare slack-jawed from surprise when an arrow hit him in the chest. They reached for their guns while the beggar ran but that just gave her a new target. An arrow through the arm took away their mastery of weapons and poison coating the arrow tips that had taken down a skin-changer prince made sure there was no running away.

  She jumped down to the alleyway with her spear in hand.

  The policemen stared at her in disbelief, and she regarded them coldly. They were evil men with blood on their hands and relishing the pain they could cause without consequences. But today consequences had found them. You did not let servants of the Screaming live.

  “By the power of the Wyrd King, I sentence you to die.” She said.