Prologue

Snow.

Snow and black rock and freezing wind.

The storm roared through the desolate mountain pass, each chill gust stirring up a fresh hail of frozen snow pellets. Strong enough to throw unwary travelers off balance, falling to their doom among the sharp crags and tangled boulders below.

High above, the towering mountain peaks disappeared into the gray, leaden clouds that swirled angrily all around.

Through this bleak, hostile environment, a lone figure struggled defiantly up the slope. Hunched over against the gathering storm, face turned away from the wind that blasted exposed skin raw, a young girl trudged doggedly through the deepening snow. Each breath came as a shallow, gasping sigh, the warmth and moisture of each exhalation instantly torn away by the howling wind as if the mountain itself was trying to suck the life right out of her.

She carried no pack or shelter, no equipment or weapons, not even a stock of food to sustain her wearying journey. There had been no time to gather anything in the panicked chaos of her departure, fleeing from the reassuring security of her village, her home, her people.

Or whatever her people had become.

The girl shuddered from something far deeper than the chilling wind as her mind vividly recalled the horrors she had witnessed just a day earlier. The scenes of death and terrifying violence committed by people who had shown only love and loyalty toward one another. An entire village wiped out, an entire community destroyed. Everyone she had ever known and cared about in her fifteen years of life lost forever.

And all of it because of the object she carried with her, an object that weighed heavy in the small leather satchel slung over one shoulder, bumping painfully against her side with each step.

The spirit stone. A big shard of infinitely black rock, unlike any they had ever seen before, its multifaceted surfaces perfectly flat, its edges straight as an arrow, its bizarre crystalline depths drawing the eye and the mind in. The only imperfection in its strange form was the rough fault line along the base where it had been broken away from its place of rest.

The girl vividly remembered the excitement of its discovery a few days ago, when the hunting party she’d accompanied had chanced upon a hitherto unknown cave high in the mountains. Three of the strongest and bravest hunters had ventured inside, the flickering glow of their torches disappearing into the darkness.

When at length they emerged from the shadowy cavern, they brought with them an outlandish tale of fabulous caverns filled with stars, like stepping into a different world. And as proof of their discovery, they had brought with them the spirit stone, hewn from the wall of this strange subterranean world.

Failing daylight and poor weather had curtailed further expeditions underground, forcing them to return to their village with their curious prize. Still, they had been hailed as heroes and brave explorers, and soon there was talk of returning to the cave to seek more treasures.

Then the sickness started. It began with the young men of the hunting party, but all too quickly it spread to others until it became like a wildfire raging unchecked through their village. Even the village’s best healers could do nothing to halt its progress.

The girl couldn’t explain it, but on some deep level she sensed it: that this object that had been hailed as a gift from the spirit world, a talisman of power, was the source of their downfall.

Evil dwelt within it, and the dark malevolence that li