Page 2 of Red Ruin

It’s delivering that.

Done waiting for help that never comes, I hop off the bench and start to poke around.

I’m antsy to make my transfer official.

Until I leave my mental mark on the commander’s token, I won’t be able to stop thinking about the past.

There’s too much risk of being clawed home and stuck back in the miserable position I never managed to make my own.

It’s not so bad, being ignored.

If Kevan had been paying attention, I’d still be rotting in his estate, wasting my powers while my “mother” schemes to re-sell me to the next available duke.

Alessandra Ashbourne didn’t rise from a mistress to a baroness by waiting for the job to become available.

She wanted to teach me how to cozy up to power.

From the day I tested as an S-class Guide, the verymomentBaron and Baroness Ashbourne found out I was the perfect pawn for kissing ducal ass, I realizedI’mthe one with the power.

And it doesn’t matter at all.

Suddenly, the family cared about my homeschool plan, why I had so many bruises, and whether I’d eaten—after we hadn’t shared a meal in years.

My “brother” Sorrel was sent away for outside study. The family even summoned a healer for me—to erase the scars he left behind under the guise of training me for future combat.

Then, I had new books and weapons instead of tattered hand-me-downs, and an army of etiquette tutors appeared to drill me on how a proper duchess holds a teacup.

All the Ashbournes ended up teaching me was the same lesson that Kevan just hammered into my bone marrow.

Promises and power, even love and family ties are all just smoke.

If you want a place?

Prove your value.

The day someone else does it better is the day you’re replaced.

I made a mistake, putting all my energy into Kevan.

But new guard, new game.

This time, I’ll make myself invaluable toeveryonein the Farguard.

I can’t fail again.

After a careful lap around the platform, I find a bleached map of Lomfort old town askew on an unbitten stretch of wall. The train station’s location is marked under cracked glass and dried flecks of green blood.

Someone drew the Farguard’s base over the glass in marker. The tower shape labeled “FG” sits surrounded in crooked fences, just north of town.

Carrying nothing but my backpack, I head north, toward the range of mountains looming on the horizon.

The twilit streets are as empty as my pockets.

Faervaine’s Northern Legion has been fighting to keep the territory around Lomfort for centuries. I read that the last human stragglers fled decades ago.

What’s left of the town is an eerie time capsule. Smashed windows and acid-pitted sidewalks show how often the battle has spilled into the streets since the era of the first spawn, when monsters appeared out of nowhere.

Back then, spawns were rare. Now monsters materialize by the horde. They invade more of our territory every year.