In December 2010, Greg Veder went missing for four days. Where he went, it lasted years.
He came back to Brockton Bay in January, fifteen again, in a body that had never held a sword. He brought three things home from the Lands Between: a fire under his breastbone, a weight that turns around his spine, and a rot sealed in the marrow of his bones. He also brought the goddess who lives in the fire. She calls him "little ember", and she has opinions.
Greg isn't a parahuman. He has no shard, he never triggered, and he never played the game. He just lived through it, and the habits came home with him. He finishes what won't stay down. He also once spared a man who didn't deserve it, and he'd like to stay the kind of person who does that.
Brockton Bay is going to find out which habit wins. There's the healer on the hospital roof who asks "May I?" before she touches him, the girl he pulled out of a locker on his first day back, a Ward who hunts at night, a dragon on Pine Street, and a man behind the curtain who gets to try everything twice.
He came back to Brockton Bay in January, fifteen again, in a body that had never held a sword. He brought three things home from the Lands Between: a fire under his breastbone, a weight that turns around his spine, and a rot sealed in the marrow of his bones. He also brought the goddess who lives in the fire. She calls him "little ember", and she has opinions.
Greg isn't a parahuman. He has no shard, he never triggered, and he never played the game. He just lived through it, and the habits came home with him. He finishes what won't stay down. He also once spared a man who didn't deserve it, and he'd like to stay the kind of person who does that.
Brockton Bay is going to find out which habit wins. There's the healer on the hospital roof who asks "May I?" before she touches him, the girl he pulled out of a locker on his first day back, a Ward who hunts at night, a dragon on Pine Street, and a man behind the curtain who gets to try everything twice.