Elide Lochan has spent three days fleeing through Oakwald from an unseen hunter. Exhausted, lost, and frightened, Elide stops at a stream to drink and refill her canteen, but a strange howl reminds her of the unexplained horrors she once heard in Morath.

Across the stream, Lorcan Salvaterre reveals himself and tells Elide to come with him if she wants to live. From Lorcan’s point of view, he has been tracking Elide because she is human yet carries a trace of darkness, though her fear convinces Lorcan that Elide is not willingly serving the Valg.

More snarls rise from multiple directions, showing Elide and Lorcan that they are being herded. Elide chooses to flee east to avoid the mountains and their wyverns, and Lorcan follows, irritated by her human slowness but unwilling to let Elide die after tracking Elide for so long.

Lorcan considers the Wyrdkey hidden in Lorcan’s jacket but refuses to use it. Instead, Lorcan casts a powerful shield behind them, only for the pursuing creatures to crack and break through it. Lorcan sends Elide onward and stops to face the attackers, drawing on Lorcan’s deathly magic.

The creatures emerge: enormous blue-black beings with claws, bat-like faces, human eyes, speech, and unnatural resilience. Lorcan kills one by nearly beheading it, but the others survive knives driven into their skulls and heal. Lorcan realizes beheading may be the only reliable way to destroy them, and that their magic can melt Lorcan’s shields.

The leader identifies the creatures as ilken, hunters sent by “His Dark Majesty” to retrieve Elide, whom the ilken call a thief and murderer. Lorcan bluffs that Lorcan might help for a reward, trying to buy time and learn why Elide matters, but an instinctive warning tells Lorcan to run just before a scream erupts from the forest behind him.