Connor fell asleep while the moon was dark and long before dawn. Only twenty seven sticks were finished and the last one burned brightly in the darkness and carried the blaze above the ash rings. As the eclipsed moon hid itself for another year, a dark shadow smothered the ember and wrapped a thick cloak around the sleeping orphan. He would bleed on the punishment stones beside the smith's family, and the smith himself would be dead by the next moonrise. The king was coming.
