The lizard didn't have time to struggle. Varig drove the blade between its ribs with the cold precision of someone who no longer feared death, but needed it to keep breathing. He twisted the hilt, feeling the wet snap of cartilage, and waited for the last tremor to pass into the mud. The swamp's silence returned, heavy and damp, broken only by the rhythmic ploc-ploc of gas bubbles rising from the black water.

  He opened the creature with a single, long stroke. Steam rose from the entrails, smelling of iron and silt. His hands worked fast—the hand of dirty human flesh, and the other, the secret hidden beneath layers of rags. The grey arm throbbed, a phantom hunger that made his fingers tingle with a will of their own to touch the exposed meat. Skinning was filthy work, but in the Mire, you either had something to sell, or you were the next thing to rot under the stilts.

  Hours later, civilization appeared like a festering wound in the mist. The Mire was a tangle of crooked palisades and walkways built from shipwrecked timber and pure desperation. There was no solid ground here, only rotting planks that creaked under the weight of people who preferred to walk in the shadows. Below, the water was stagnant, exhaling the sour stench of sewage and the cloying sweetness of carcasses the swamp refused to digest.

  Varig kept his head low. He remembered the market in his village, the moldy bread he once shared with his father. There, selfishness was fought with Vitor's touch. Here, selfishness was the only law that mattered.

  He entered The Broken Ballast, a tavern that smelled of stale ale and pipe smoke. He ordered the five-eyed fish. The bowl arrived with a grey, greasy broth. The fish's milky eyes stared back at him with a silent judgment, a haunting mirror of the neighbor who had died beside him at South Village, a black arrow through his throat. Varig ate slowly. It tasted of metal and bile.

  At the center table, a brute named Renn slammed a mug against the wood. "—and the bastard opened the back gate without a second thought," Renn laughed, showing yellowed, broken teeth. "The elves slipped in like smoke. The Hunter—that scout everyone trusted—just stood there against a tree, counting his silver while the village turned into an oven. They say he even pointed out where the whelps were hiding under the floorboards."

  Varig froze. The spoon stopped mid-air, grey broth dripping back into the bowl.

  South Village. The massacre that destroyed his life hadn't been a natural disaster. It was a transaction. That trembling scout he had glimpsed beside the elves—the traitor sweating under a leather collar while arrows whistled—that was The Hunter. The man who had traded his father's warmth for a handful of silver.

  "Smart man," Garr, a merc with a thick neck and pox scars, shrugged. "Sold his neighbors and bought his own skin. I'd have done the same if the coin was heavy enough."

  "Cleared the weeds," Renn snorted, spitting into the sawdust. "Vorins are a plague, Garr. Everyone knows it. The scout just sped up the inevitable. They say there was a nursery full of them in that village. Better the fire than letting those freaks grow up to suck the breath out of us while we sleep."

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  Beneath Varig's tunic, the collar vibrated. An aggressive heat. Vitor's voice came as a dry whisper: "Do you hear them, pup? The pig who guided us to our graves... he sold my embrace and your future for copper. Humans are parasites, boy. They would trample each other to escape a fire they lit themselves. The Hunter is only the first we shall harvest."

  Varig gripped the wooden spoon until it snapped in his hand. The hatred tasted like bile.

  "Can we stop barking about monsters and focus on the gold?" Lira interrupted. She sat at the edge of the table, her eyes deep-set like someone who had seen too many hells. "We have a deadline. If the Titanoboa doesn't fall by the full moon, the loan sharks at the docks will have our heads."

  "I need a mule," Renn wiped his beard with a filthy sleeve. "Someone to carry the iron net and the venom. Someone who won't be missed if the snake decides to bite the first thing it sees."

  Varig stood up. The hunger in his stomach was now larger than the need for food. It was a hunger for power. "I'll carry it. Just give me the silver."

  Renn laughed. "You? You look like a twig the wind forgot to snap. But if you want to die carrying my weight, be at the docks by dawn."

  The journey over the following days was a slow torture. Varig carried two massive packs and oil-soaked ropes that felt like lead. Renn kicked him when the pace slowed, calling him "trash." Garr entertained himself by watching Varig trip over submerged roots—the same roots he had nearly drowned in beneath the trapdoor on the night of the attack.

  To ward off the fear of what lived in the deep pools, they talked about the Vorins. "My grandmother said a Vorin adult can drain a whole inn just by walking through the door," Garr said. "If you see a grey arm, don't ask questions. Cut the head. It's the only way to not turn into smoke."

  Varig felt his left arm throb, the heat searing through the bandages. He pressed the straps against his chest, praying he wouldn't be discovered.

  On the second night, under a rain that felt like needles of ice, Lira approached him. She held out a canteen. "Drink. It'll stop the shaking," she said, her voice dry.

  Varig took it, wary. The liquid burned his throat. "Why?" he asked.

  Lira sat on a root, watching the low fire. "I had a brother. Scrawny like you. The elves took him when my village fell." She gave a hollow smile. "Don't get ideas, kid. I'm helping you because I don't want to carry your corpse tomorrow. Dead weight doesn't carry nets."

  Varig looked at her, the hatred of the betrayal at South Village still throbbing in his mind. "Your village... was there a Vorin there?"

  Lira went silent for a long time. "There was an old man. They said he killed his mother during birth, sucking the life out of her. But when the elves came, the 'monster' was the only one who stayed at the gate so the children could run. The people who called him a baby-snatcher were the first to trample their own kin to flee. In the end, the Vorin was the only human thing in that mud."

  Varig felt his arm vibrate. A painful recognition. "What happened to him?"

  "He turned to ash. The world doesn't like what it can't control. Sleep."

  On the fifth day, the swamp fell mute. The air grew thick, smelling of carrion and acid. The canal water turned into a black mirror. Renn raised a hand, sweating. Garr pulled his sword, the metal trembling.

  The water bubbled. Slow. A mass of black scales rose from the surface. The head of the Titanoboa emerged. Its yellow eyes were the size of dinner plates, pupils like slits into hell. It rose, leveling its gaze with the group.

  Varig's arm burned with a violent force. The collar released a mental laugh that vibrated in his teeth.

  "Look at the size of that essence, pup! Look at the banquet!" The father's voice was pure predatory euphoria. "The cowards will run. The girl will die. But you... you will show this worm who the true predator is."

  Varig took a step forward, the weight of the ropes vanishing. He looked into the serpent's eyes and felt no fear. He felt only the hunger.