Noah’s eyes snapped open to find his mouth watering. The smell of cooked crab had filled the air with such an intensity that he could literally taste it. It was joined by the faint crackle and warmth of a fire at his back.

  He turned.

  Lee sat behind him, holding a massive crab leg easily twice her height over the fire with one hand. The husks of several hollowed-out legs were strewn about behind her. She’d made short work of the monster.

  Holy shit. How long was I out? How did she manage to start a barbeque so quickly?

  Lee glanced over at him.

  “Oh! That was faster than I expected,” Lee said. Her head tilted slightly to the side. “You smell a bit different. Did you make your—”

  “Don’t,” Noah said.

  Lee grinned. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “I’m in your head,” Noah replied as he rose to his feet and brushed off his backside. He needn’t have bothered. Eliana’s clothes hadn’t picked up so much as a single speck of dirt. They really were quite impressive. “And I know exactly what you were thinking.”

  “Nu-uh.”

  “You’re thinking about the crab,” Noah said, walking to join Lee by the fire.

  Her eyes widened. “Did you squeeze a Mind rune somewhere into the Volcano one?”

  “No,” Noah said. “I don’t think anyone needs one of those to figure out what you’re thinking.”

  Lee harrumphed.

  He flexed his fingers. It was getting harder to feel the changes from adding new Rank 5s to his soul. That wasn’t because they were any weaker. His soul was just so large now that the extra runes simply weren’t changing much at all in terms of the pressure it exuded.

  I’m only two runes away from Rank 6. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get both before the tournament. There are less than two weeks left before it… but I do think I’ve got a pretty damn good idea of the direction I want to take my Rank 6. Getting the last runes shouldn’t actually be too difficult. If I just had Grim, I could probably do it in a single afternoon.

  A small frown pulled at the corners of Noah’s lips. It didn’t get to linger for long. Grim and Moxie were off somewhere near. He knew it. And in just a few weeks, he’d meet them again. All he had to do was to make sure he performed well enough during the tournament to get their attention — or last until Lee managed to sniff them out.

  I wonder how strong the new Rune is, though.

  Noah reached out to Volcanic Cataclysm. Its power bubbled within him as his mind brushed across it. Magic gathered at his fingertips, heating the air. He pressed his hand to the ground at his side and let a small portion of the rune’s strength free.

  The earth cracked. A six-foot long crack sliced through the ground, tearing it apart as a wave of heat rolled out from within it.

  Noah kept a firm hold of the magic. He didn’t want to accidentally blow himself and Lee up. Just because the Rune had destruction in the name didn’t mean he was going to let it run wild.

  Molten orange light spilled out from the crack as hot bubbles of lava burst, chewing through rock far faster than Noah had initially expected. If he’d put even a little more power into the rune, it probably would have exploded up from the ground like a geyser. He cut the flow of energy running to the rune almost instantly.

  The lava stilled, the magic powering the heat filling it rapidly fading and letting it turn back to nothing more than hot stone. He and Lee both looked down at the still-smoldering crack in the earth. Then they glanced to each other.

  “How much magic was that?” Lee asked.

  “Not much,” Noah replied. “And it wasn’t very concentrated either. I was trying to hold back.”

  “I feel a bit bad for the next monster we fight,” Lee said. She took a bite out of her steaming crab leg. “It’s going to get cooked.”

  ***

  Truthseeker Liya repressed the urge to rock back and forth in in the hard-backed chair she’d had the misfortune to sit in. The hard wood was somehow less comfortable than the ground would have been, and the dull scent of overcooked meat and stale bread was not helping.

  Her eyes felt like they were full of sand. Sleep tugged her head down toward the table that swam at the edges of her vision, and the lullaby of uninterested cutlery grating against plates wasn’t helping anymore.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d fallen asleep. It had been at least four days. Four days without killing a single monster. For that matter, it had been four days without doing much of anything at all.

  Anything but watching.

  But Og had given Liya her orders. She knew her purpose. And for that purpose, she would remain until the world itself turned over. Liya would sit in the chair, even if it filled her backside with so many splinters that she could never sit again, until her task was done.

  There was a False Herald somewhere in this tavern.

  Or, at least, there would be.

  She didn’t know when. She didn’t know who. She certainly didn’t know why. But the False Herald was coming.

  Og had told her to keep watch, and so she watched. It hadn’t even seemed like it would be a very difficult role.

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  The Tavern was in some town near the center of the Coral empire, but it was nowhere near close enough to have drawn any real interest from anyone significant. And a False Herald — no matter the lies they cloaked themselves with — was still powerful.

  That was why they were a threat.

  It should have been easy to identify one. Unfortunately, the tournament had completely ruined that. There had been so many adventurers, so many powerful warriors, passing through on this day alone, that she didn’t have the faintest idea who the Herald might have been.

  You’ll know. When you see him, you’ll know.

  That’s what Og had said.

  Liya’s eyes fluttered. Her jaw clenched. She shook her head and forced herself to remain awake. There were other Truthseekers throughout the tavern. This one and others. She wasn’t the only one watching.

  They would find the False Herald. But they wasn’t enough. It had to be her. This was the way she proved her loyalty. It was the way she made it free of the outer ranks and grew one step closer to seeing —

  A crash cut through Liya’s hazy thoughts. Cups and plates shattered against the ground, blowing apart in a rain of ceramic. Her eyes snapped toward the source of the noise and she nearly leapt out of her seat in excitement.

  Excitement that died almost instantly.

  Two adventurers had somehow managed to walk straight into each other. A lizardman, covered in dull green scales with a dozen tarnished gold bangles stacked along his arms, had fallen to his backside. Beer dripped from him, staining his dark clothes and dripping from his hairless head.

  Above him stood a massive mountain of a man, easily ten feet tall, and covered with so much muscle that it had probably wrung his brain to a pulp. A pair of massive axes were crossed over his back.

  “Ah, shit,” the large man said, not sounding all that bothered. “I didn’t see you there. Sorry about that.”

  The lizardman picked himself up. The bangles on his arms clanked against each other as he rose, wringing beer from his shirt.

  “It is understandable,” the lizardman said, clapping the larger man on the arm. “I doubt you are capable of seeing past your sizable pectorals. The mistake is mine for not observing where I was walking. I was distracted.”

  The large man nodded. Then he stepped to the side, walking around the lizardman and heading for his table.

  A flicker of annoyance cut through Liya. She’d let herself get so distracted by the pair of idiots that the False Herald might have slipped right under her nose. That was unacceptable. She had to be the one that found their target.

  It could be anyone. Anywhere. I need to keep an eye out for power. For someone dangerous. One who dares to oppose even the True Herald. I will not fail in my duty. I—

  There was someone standing in front of her.

  Liya’s blinked. Then her eyes narrowed. The Lizardman had walked into her path, blocking her view of the room. He still smelled like shitty beer.

  “Move,” Liya said sharply. “I am uninterested in speaking.”

  “You have a napkin. One that you are not using,” the scaled man said, nodding to the table beside her. “And I have a displeasing amount of poorly brewed slop upon my person. I trust it is clear that you are in a position in which to aid me.”

  Liya grabbed the piece of cloth and shoved it at him, physically driving the man out of her line of sight. “Take it and leave.”

  A hissing laugh slipped from the man’s thin, scaled lips. His fingers brushed against her hand as he took it from her. They were ice cold.

  “Thank you,” the man said. He pulled a chair out beside Liya, lowering himself to sit right at the edge of her field of vision as he wiped himself down. His tongue flicked out to taste the air. It was a pale purple, so sickly that she could have sworn it would have suited a corpse better. “You seem to be quite enraptured. What is it that holds your attention?”

  “I am uninterested in your advances,” Liya said. “Leave.”

  “So temperamental,” the man said with another hissing laugh. “The tournament seems to have everyone on such an edge. I do wonder why. Didn’t we all come here for the same reason?”

  “No,” Liya said sharply. She scanned the room again, but there was still no sign of the False Herald. “We did not. And I have no interest in conversing further with you.”

  “Very well,” the man said. His lips curled into a snakelike sneer. Then he set the soaked napkin down on the table beside her. “I wish you the best of luck in finding what you seek.”

  Then he was gone, slipping through the crowd and out of the tavern.

  Liya gritted her teeth.

  If that fool cost me the chance at finding the False Herald…

  The other Truthseekers wouldn’t have been distracted, though. They were all watching. Just as she wanted to. If they hadn’t moved yet, then the False Herald was yet to arrive. Perhaps it was cheating. But Liya didn’t care.

  All that mattered was victory.

  She risked a glance to her side, at the nearest of her companions.

  Then she blinked.

  He laid face-down in a heap on the ground several tables to her side. People stepped around him. Nobody had even glanced in his direction. There were more than enough passed out drunkards in the tavern — but Liya knew one thing for certain. No Truthseeker would let themselves get drunk with a job of this scale at stake.

  What’s going on?

  Liya rose from her chair and darted over to the man, crouching at his side and grabbing him by the shoulder. A vile smell lingered in the air around him, like sickly earth and sweet rot. Liya flipped him over.

  The Truthseeker’s face was gone.

  Scraps of melted flesh hung from decaying bones, the crumbling leer of his skeleton sneering up at her from beyond the grave.

  Liya’s eyes widened. She stumbled back, tripping over her own feet and landing hard on her backside. She scrambled upright as quickly as she had fallen, her heart pounding as she spun to scan the room.

  For the first time, she glanced in the direction of the other Truthseekers.

  A hunched form over a table.

  A woman curled into a ball at the edge of the counter.

  A pair of men draped over each other, unmoving.

  Ice prickled across the back of her neck. Her hair stood straight on end. Every single one of them was dead. And their deaths had been quiet enough that nobody had even noticed. Even though all of the Truthseekers had positioned themselves away from any prying eyes, there should have been at least some kind of commotion. They wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.

  But there had been none at all.

  When did this happen?

  Then the screaming started.

  The large man from a few moments ago staggered upright, clutching at his chest and howling. He clawed at himself, collapsing onto a table and shattering the old wood beneath his weight. It collapsed with a loud crash.

  The man leapt back up, spinning like a man set aflame.

  “Help!” he screamed. “Somebody help me!”

  And then Liya saw it.

  A bubbling yellow pox, thick and viscous, pouring from his chest and taking sweeping layers of skin, muscle, and organ along with it. Even his now-exposed bones were sloughing away in a thick soup.

  It was the same manner of magic that had killed the Truthseekers… but a considerably less painless version of it judging by how his screams had been the first to grace the room.

  The man stumbled, tripping over his own feet to land on the ground with a heavy thud. His internals splattered all around him, melted into a wretched stew.

  Screams tore through the tavern in an instant. People crashed into each other as a stampede built in an instant as every single person rushed for the door in an attempt to escape the mysterious attacker.

  But Liya didn’t move.

  She stood, frozen in place, staring in horror at what remained of the large man. At the bubbling mess that had once been a living being.

  Liya did not move because there was no point.

  A droplet of cold sweat rolled down the back of her neck.

  Her hand was burning.

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