Lorcan could barely lift his sword before the soldier plunged his own into Lorcan’s gut. Lorcan fell, sword clattering. Icy mud sucked at his face, as if it would swallow him whole. Pull him down into the dark depths of Hellas’s realm, where he deserved to be. The earth shook beneath thundering hooves, and arrows screamed overhead. Then there was roaring. And then blackness.

