Shivering, Skeln awakens from a nightmare with trickles of cold sweat running down his spine. Shivering less from the cold and more from the dream, he clutched the worn blanket closer around his shoulders. The High Chancellor's grinning face and the red hot brand still hovered before his eyes in the predawn dusk filtering in through cracks in the wall. Sleep is impossible so he decides to leave his father snoring softly and take a walk to settle his agitated thoughts. Black carriages, men in mail wearing the king's oak sigil, the High Chancellor revealing that he hunted people possessing...