1. The Flayed Bear

Traveling west toward the Thrall Mountains, the narrator and Galva arrive in the rough hill village of Hredlangessfir. The narrator negotiates with a brusque bear-skinning woman and buys a donkey for four Molrovan scales, mindful of dwindling funds. Observing the village’s crude justice and meager commerce, they choose a precarious inn for rest before the crossing.

They banter about baths and beds, then settle in for the night. The narrator dreams of Sesta—an Assassin-Adept from the Guild—reimagined as a poisonous, armless serpent blocking his way, signaling his anxiety about pursuit and helplessness. He wakes to the guttering lamp, Galva’s war-haunted sleep, and a sense that something is wrong.

The sentient Book of the Full Shadow has slipped from its bag and lies open, writing commands in Gunnish as a blended, inhuman voice outside the shutter echoes them. The text urges locals to kill the “enemies of the Guild” and return the stolen book. The narrator discovers a magical kynd mouth in the wall channeling the book’s message.

To prevent an attack, the narrator avoids damaging his knife and uses an iron tent stake—deadly to magic—to spear the mouth. It bleeds ink, seizes on the stake, and dies, reverting to stained wall with the iron now fixed in place. Galva wakes ready for battle, but the narrator downplays the disturbance. The book’s page illustration of the mouth returns, fainter—and smiling—confirming its malicious will and the ongoing danger it poses.