They buried Jeffrey at dusk, just outside the borders of Vesper, in a burial ground that stretched like a jagged scar across the earth.

  The sun's dying light painted long shadows over the mourners, pooling like spilled ink at their feet. A chill spring breeze rustled the skeletal branches of nearby trees, the eerie sound sent an involuntary shiver down Hayden’s spine.

  Hayden, son of the Lord of Vesper, stared down at the shallow grave, his lips pressing into a thin, bitter line. This is even shallower than the ones he dug for the girls, he thought darkly, anger simmering beneath the surface.

  The hole before him resembled little more than a lazy scrape in the earth—a mockery of a proper burial. A few meager feet of dirt would be no match for the scavengers that prowled the Vale of Shadows. He knew that lesson too well.

  We should have dug deeper, he thought, his teeth clenched. I knew it. I knew we should’ve gone deeper.

  The irony wasn’t lost on him. Had his friends listened—had they taken the time to dig a proper grave for those girls last summer—perhaps they wouldn’t be here now, buried in their own. All of them.

  Except him.

  Hayden’s gaze drifted to the edge of the gathering, where Emmerson, the grave keeper, leaned heavily on his shovel beneath a weathered tree. The wind tugged at the man’s tattered coat, and even with the shovel for support, he swayed unsteadily, like a drunk.

  Drunk, Hayden thought, his scowl deepening. Of course he is.

  The Emmerson Hayden remembered from his childhood was a ghost compared to the wreck of a man before him. Greasy, tangled strands of gray hair framed a face lined with years of neglect, bloodshot eyes peering out from hollow cheeks above a red, vein-laced nose.

  Once, Emmerson had been a proud guard in the Lord of Nightfall’s household—a man with a wife, children, purpose. But that had been more than a decade ago, before he’d lost it all. Now, the grave keeper spent his days clutching a flask, stumbling between the dead and the bottle.

  Truly, it baffled Hayden how anyone could take Emmerson’s drunken ramblings seriously—let alone his wild claim that he’d heard a Harbinger singing for the dead girls.

  Harbingers hadn’t been seen in the Vale for as long as Hayden had been alive. Not since the Ascended and his Risen God waged their war on the Sanctuaries and drove out the keepers of the old ways.

  Even if Harbingers still existed, what were the odds one had wandered into the Vale this spring just as those hunters stumbled upon the girls’ scattered remains?

  Ridiculous, Hayden thought, glaring at the brittle branches above as they rattled in the wind. More likely he woke from a drunken stupor, heard the wind, and decided it was a ghostly tune.

  But convincing his father of that? Another story entirely.

  Hayden’s lip curled as he glanced toward his father, Lord Dennard, standing beside Jasper Facilious, the Lord of the northern Vale, and Jeffrey’s father. Since Emmerson’s rant about hearing a Harbinger, Dennard had become obsessed with finding the supposed singer of the dead.

  He could almost forgive his father’s obsession, considering it was likely driven by the fact that word of the Harbinger had reached the Ascended’s in the capital. Who likely ordered the Harbinger’s capture, and no one disobeyed the Voice of the Risen God. Not even the king.

  However, the fixation left little room for more pressing matters—like hunting the monster that had killed Jeffrey and the others.

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  The townsfolk’s belief that the same creature was responsible for the deaths of the girls unearthed during the spring thaw suited Hayden just fine.

  After all, no one needed to know the truth.

  The holes he and his friends had dug behind Farmer Rackles’ property, the ones meant to hide their fun, had been shallow. Too shallow. The winter’s harshness had left the Vale’s scavengers hungry, and by spring, the girls’ graves had been unearthed, their bones scattered like morbid breadcrumbs.

  That’s how the hunters found them.

  Hayden stared at Jeffrey’s grave and clenched his fists.

  It was just one of the mistakes he would not repeat twice. The fall out from their summer fun had almost not been worth it. Next time, he’d go at it alone.

  Old Gods be damned, Hayden thought bitterly, pulling his cloak tighter against the creeping chill. Can they just hurry this up?

  Restless, his gaze swept over the gathered mourners. The crowd was sparse, a mere shadow of the throng that had turned out to grieve the peasant girls discovered in the spring thaw.

  Not that he had attended. No, the evening they buried the girls, he had simply ridden by the service. More curious than anything else.

  His stomach twisted with resentment. Even in death, Jeffrey seemed to garner less sympathy than commoner victims. Was this the worth of a nobleman’s life?

  Across the grave, Lady Facilious’s muffled sobs broke the oppressive silence. Her soft cries grated on Hayden’s already fraying nerves. Draped in a fur-lined cloak, Jeffrey’s mother crumpled beneath the weight of her grief. She clung to her daughter Lydia, who stood firm, her jaw set and her eyes rimmed with red. The loss of her brother had carved lines of sorrow into her youthful face, but her posture spoke of defiance—a silent pillar for her mother.

  Pathetic, Hayden fought to keep the look of disgust from his face. Such weakness.

  Flanked by his two sons from his first marriage, the Bear of the Northern Vale stood like a mountain at the edge of the gathering, his arms crossed over his barrel chest. His tunic bore the snarling bear emblem of his house, its teeth bared in perpetual defiance. His ruddy complexion had deepened to a dangerous shade of crimson, and his fists were clenched tightly at his sides, the veins on his forearms bulging like cords. Fury radiated off him in waves, a palpable force that seemed to charge the air.

  Hayden’s gaze lingered on the lord before drifting to his father, who remained standing at the Bear’s side. A bitter thought coiled in his mind: If it were me in that grave, my father wouldn’t even spare a breath of grief, let alone fury.

  The setting sun cast the Vale in shadow, and Hayden’s unease crept higher. His eyes darted from the grave to the dark expanse of trees beyond. Somewhere out there, whatever had killed Jeffrey—and the others—was still hunting. And Hayden couldn’t shake the dread pooling in his chest that he was next.

  “Start the damned ceremony already,” he muttered under his breath, his scowl fixed on the Seneschal at the head of the grave.

  Deiter, the Seneschal, stood with maddening patience, waiting for the sun to fully vanish. A relatively young man, his dark eyes were sunken, his skin pockmarked, and his thinning chestnut hair barely combed into place. He had only recently arrived from the Azure Tower in the Capital, stepping into the role after the previous Seneschal had died quietly in his sleep the year prior.

  His normally pristine azure robes hung heavy and sodden while a layer of mud clung to the hem as he stood at the head of the grave. His hands remained tucked inside his flowing sleeves against the cold.

  Hayden’s fists tightened at his sides. The sun dipped below the horizon.

  Almost as if the Seneschal heard him, Deiter raised his hands high and began the laments.

  “This evening, we gather to lay to rest Jeffrey Facilious. Son of Jasper Facilious,” Deiter’s voice was smooth but heavy with practiced gravitas. “As with those who have gone before him, we lay Jeffrey to rest with the setting sun, so that he may rise with the dawn. Trust in the Risen God’s mercy. Blessed are those who rise on the morrow.”

  “Blessed are those who rise with the dawn,” the mourners murmured in unison.

  Hayden joined in, his voice hollow, his mind already drifting once more. The last few nights had been sleepless, haunted by the knowledge that he was the last one.

  They had all played the game that summer—Hayden, Jeffrey, and the others. Now they were all dead but him. The beast—or man—had seen to that. And if the pattern held, he knew his turn was coming.

  Hayden tightened his grip on his cloak as a shiver raced through him. The night was falling fast, and whatever it was that killed his friends, seemed to hunt only in the darkness. Hayden clenched his jaw, his resolve hardening.

  I must act, Hayden thought. Or it shall be my body they throw first upon next.