"Open the gates!" The command rang out to the other guards behind the gate.

The gates of Cumoreen opened with a hiss.

Two great serpents carved from midnight stone peeled back from the gate like lids removed from an eye, their jeweled sockets glittering open as the boy approached. The air shimmered with venomous humidity, thick and heady as the visitor walked in. He moved with an old calm that denied his age of twelve years. Tall and lean, he carried the kind of stillness that made ...