Arrin had not noticed the curtain of shadow that fell to one side of the tent, unnatural in its pitch-blackness; the haggling merchant, the other customers, and his guard soon silent as their stunned curiosity crept over with dread. He had snuck out with his guard in the rare event that his father, the Arch King, had left the capital, free from his watch. Here he was no one of concern – yet he felt a chilling certainty that they knew who he was, and their purpose was for him alone.

“Run, Arrin!” Theod, the captain of his guard, managed to shout before a flying dagger jutted out from his throat, drowning out his next words with welling blood.

Arrin scrambled away from his pursuers in the Tent market, ducking through the curtains of the open tents, one after another in his search for the market square. There were guards there, armed men who could help him. But how could they hope to stop assassins that had slain his Crown Guard with swift ease? And they had a Mage with them, at least one. The image of Theod’s throat stuck through with the flitting dagger – moving with its own seeming will – rooted into Arrin’s mind, gurgling with blood spraying soon after the dagger shot back into that unfathomable darkness.

Merchants cursed in Vinnien, Umbrak, Haolo then back to Cadish as Arrin rushed and shoved past their exclaiming customers. Pungent scents of herbs and spices now filled the tents, cloth bags holding their exotic wares from the southern and eastern Realms. He crashed through one such burlap sack, exploding into the air with orange spices that itched his nose and watered his eyes.

The spaces separating each tent were only wide enough for a single shuffling file along each side; still Arrin weaved through the hollering men. One such man cuffed the back of Arrin’s head, but he paid no heed in his haste. They did not know he was the Arch Prince, heir to the Empire that they were all citizens under, but how could they? For they had never seen his face; he barely left the Circle, the castle that was his home, and could count the number of times he had left with his fingers. He was just a boy of fourteen years, sheltered from the world – yet the world was now coming to him with all its dark evils.

The signs, Arrin thought. Where were the blasted signs? He continued to sprint, legs unused to the burning exertion, his right side soon branded with pain, and spotted a wooden post with three signs pointing to either side. There it was, a wooden fingerpost carved with a square to his right.

Arrin renewed his mad dash, trying not to look back, heart hammering through his chest and pounding out his fear with a primal survival. Who were they? Haolan monks with their agile martial skill perhaps, Arrin had seen them perform once before in his father’s Court. No, the people who had killed his guard were faster. Men he had known all his life now dead by their hands.

Arrin remembered nothing but flitting shadows despite the bright sun, as if darkness had cloaked and protected them. He never should have snuck away despite Theod’s chiding, who always held his word unless needed. He should have listened. Perhaps Theod and the others would still be alive then.

The market square was filled with knots of ambling passerby with a jovial shopper’s contentment, wagon sized stalls littered at every side. Nothing seemed amiss, merchants and buyers haggling in a frenzied clamor. Arrin brushed past and spun round the many men and women who regarded him with curious stares and pursed lips. The two market guards watched Arrin with glazed eyes as he rushed towards them.

“There are assassins,” Arrin gasped. “They killed my guards and are coming for me.”

One guardsman, a young sallow faced man hollered, “Captain!”

Arrin grabbed the guard’s tanned brigandine, “There’s no time!” he yelled. “You must bring me to the Circle!”

An older soldier, beard grizzled underneath his steel helm peeled Arrin away by his collared neck, wrapping an arm around his head.

“What’s this?” the older man grunted.

“I don’t know, captain. Said someone was after him. Boy wants us to escort him back to the Circle.”

“Circle you say?” The captain mused. Arrin squirmed from the guard’s headlock, but there was no escape. “You expect us to drop our watch and follow at your beck and call, boy?”

The young guard guffawed, “Probably just a game to him. Cheeky bastard, ain’t ya?”

Arrin cursed silently for his disguise of normalcy, he looked just a merchant's son at best with his tailored but common brown clothing.

The captain cuffed Arrin lightly and released him. “Best be off with you now.”

“Please,” Arrin pleaded. “They’re going to kill me. You have to-”

The young guard spluttered, eyes wide before the dagger that pointed out from his exposed neck. The dagger flew away, spraying blood to the captain’s bewildered face beside. A woman first screamed at the scene. The other guards yelled over the sudden frantic confusion of the crowd, scattering to the exits at each corner, away from the black cloaked figures that strode towards Arrin. Their hooded faces were shrouded in shadow even under the pelting sun's light, walking with languid steps, as if nothing could bar their path. Guards charged forward, swords raised, only to stumble and fall before their swifter swords and flying daggers that arced to cut and pierce with murderous ease.

The captain drew his own sword, bellowing, “Form up!”

The remaining guardsmen rushed to his side, brushing past Arrin, hefting the shields at their backs into a wall of steel, armor, and blustering flesh underneath it all. The assassins halted then, the guards glancing at one another in a moment of disquiet until one man exclaimed, “Above!”

“Ral's Gaze,” another gasped.

A hulking shadow loomed overhead, growing in size as a winged creature large enough to fill the entire market square with its wing span descended upon them all. Arrin stepped back and slipped into the knee-high fountain behind him, landing over his side and bruising his arms in his spluttering haste.

The guardsmen broke apart from their pressed formation, scrambling to get away from the approaching monster. Arrin wiped the sour water blurring his vision and gaped above.

The giant beast could be none other than a wrynn. And the wrynn were said to be the tamed creatures ridden by the Wraiths, supposedly the greatest soldiers in all of Arcadia who answered to his father. Except this wrynn opened its steel tipped talons flashing in the sun to crash against the floundering men, unable to escape its terrifying claws from their pressed formation.

Stalls crashed from the force of its landing, dust sifting upward to clear after a moment of deafening stillness. The chief stood up in front of the fountain with a few men still groaning to their feet. Arrin stared at the wrynn, looking akin to a gargantuan raven, albeit with its feathers tinged indigo. The wrynn were mostly believed to be creatures of legend, only found in hearsay and conjecture. He had begun to accept that they were a myth as well, never having seen one despite the scattered tales of men and women who rode them in the Empire’s service throughout the Realms. Now however, Arrin’s fascination was iced over with a creeping fear. There was only one hooded rider atop the harness of the creature, wooden planks lashed at its sides to serve as ladders leading up to the platform over its back.

“Steady…” The captain intoned, voice low, shield raised.

The wrynn cocked its head, peering down at the loose formation of men. One beady orange eye larger than Arrin’s own head peered at them, its iris a malevolent void. With monstrous swiftness it picked the captain's head up with its beak and flung him screaming skyward, blood raining to blacken the ground.

The remaining guards fled, only to be struck down one by one from the silent flight of the daggers. When the last guard stumbled, grunting with his fall and lay still, blood pooling with the rest – did Arrin freeze completely. For the fountain lay at the market’s center, with figures cloaked in shadow surrounding him at every side.

They drew closer, the screaming of the distant crowd dying down from Arrin’s blood rushing through his ears. A man, Arrin was sure he was a man despite the cover of his hood, heaved him up by his damp collar and muffled his head in a burlap sack. He was carried atop a well muscled shoulder, his breath hot and stifled in the sudden dark, the grain of the yellowed cloth lit by the sun’s glare.

He felt leather straps securing him to a seat, sounds of buckles rustling and looping over his shoulders and waist. His gut catapulted upwards, the wings of the wrynn flapping and gusting off wind. Arrin screamed then. A blow to the side of his chin brought a dull flash and he was gone.