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“ T hey’re monsters .”

One brother looked to the other, eyes wide with fear and grief both. It had begun with a simple question: “What happened to Uncle Alban?” Neither expected their father to deliver the news of his death.

The monsters had been found deep in the forest, well past where any but the soldiers were allowed to go, where the trees gnarled with sickness and the earth was desolate and unforgiving.

They came on the backs of strange creatures, carrying barbaric weapons and wielding magic they barely understood but were eager to use.

The guard always saw to exterminating the monsters before they could reach the sanctuary amongst the barrens, but not every soldier returned home from scouting missions.

“Everything about them, their skin, their teeth, their eyes , it’s all gruesome,” their father snarled, ominous smears of deep red staining his tunic. “But none of it is as disgusting as the way they think.”

The brothers knew what came next: a diatribe about cults and summonings and indentured servitude. Often one of them would grow immediately weary, and the other would covertly poke him to save them both their father’s wrath, but this time tears welled in the softer twin’s eyes instead.

“Uncle Alban’s dead ?”

“He was weak,” spat their father, black eyes growing darker with each word, filling with the hatred of a warrior who had seen too much but perhaps hated more to see fear on his son’s face. “Are you weak like Alban?”

“No,” answered the other, knowing his brother’s small voice would crack and that would result in a wholly different kind of sobbing. “We’re strong, like you.”

Their father cast them both a contemptuous look.

“You better learn to be, because you’ll be out there someday defending the city.

” He hefted a set of swords off the wall, too heavy for their scrawny arms, but they would be training until well after the moon set nonetheless.

“And if you can’t protect yourselves, those fucking humans will eat you alive. ”