The boy knew—knew—better than to trust it, for he had read of demons as wicked creatures to be vanquished by only the most experienced of shamans and practitioners. But he looked to the yurt buried in the snow, to the black flame banner that had once flown high and mighty over the sprawling steppes of his homeland. And that rage and helpless despair sharpened into something else inside him. Better to be burned by the fire of his own fury, to taste the bitterness of his wish for revenge, than to feel that devastating emptiness of nothingness his loss had left him.
