POV: Kenny

Mama says brave does not mean you are not scared; it means you walk anyway.

“I am scared,” I told Daddy.

Kael’s hand tightened around the hilt of his sword, then loosened again. He did not look at me at first, he was watching the horizon, the cracked mountains of the Dead Lands stretching like broken teeth beneath a sky that never quite decided to be day or night.

“You should be,” he said at last. “This place eats Kings.”

I nodded slowly. “It tried to eat Mama.”

His ...