"Korin! Korin, wake up!"

  Young Korin was shaken awake, eyes stinging, the taste of ash in his mouth, and coughing up the smoke in his lungs. A blistering heat licked at him from every direction like standing inside a bonfire.

  It was his friend Jenna, the older girl from the other cabin, who had woken him up. Her normally fair skin was stained with soot and sweat. The braids which Korin had always seen so neatly done were a tangled mess and coming loose, matted against her panicked demeanor.

  "What… happened?" Korin asked, struggling to breathe let alone make sense of what was going on.

  "Keep this on and take slow, steady breaths." Jenna put a wet shirt up to his mouth and nose. "Come on! We have to get out of here fast!"

  Taking him by the hand, they bolted out of the room, but not before Korin glanced past the window drapes to see the entirety of Toza village engulfed in flames. However, he didn't need to look far to realize how much of the fire had reached his home. Half of it had already collapsed.

  Across the living room and pantry that wasn't there anymore should have been his parents' bedroom, now only a collapsed rooftop of burning debris remained.

  "Jenna, wait! We have to get my mom and dad!" Korin cried, tugging against her.

  "I'm sorry… It's too late! We have to get out of here!" Jenna picked him up and barreled out of the house just as the burning thatching of the roof collapsed completely. The dry straws and vegetation quickly caught fire and bursted into the sky.

  A terrifying roar bellowed through the night, causing both of them to flinch.

  Why was this happening? Just this morning, his and Jenna's parents collected mukberries together. They were supposed to bake his favorite pie tomorrow. Now the two of them were racing through the blazing night, amidst screams distant and close, trying to escape their burning village along with others who were just as terrified if not worse off.

  At only a tender age of ten, Korin had lost everything in a blink of an eye.

  Something massive flew past the gaps in the enormous canopy, weaving through the trees with incredible dexterity and knocking fiery branches down on them.

  "It's here! The golgannoth!" someone screamed.

  A breath of fire cut off their escape from the village. Those who were ahead and unlucky enough to get caught were incinerated in an instant. If Korin hadn't tried holding Jenna back, they might have been caught in that, too.

  Mighty obsidian wings beat with such gale force that it sent them tumbling into tanning racks.

  Korin rubbed his head and peeled back the hand to see blood. To his side, Jenna sat on her trembling knees. She gazed forward, face drained of any color. He followed her eyes to a behemoth. Gigantic, fearsome beasts that inhabited these lands far and wide. However, this one didn't belong here.

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  Glistening ruby eyes, a rugged scale hide of leather as black as charcoal, and teeth as large and sharp as skinning knives… this was a golgannoth. A draconic behemoth native to the desert craglands of Ag. So, what was it doing this far west in the jungles of Karacos?

  Fearing for their end, Jenna embraced Korin. Her whole body was shaking, and her hands nails dug into his back. To see her so terrified triggered something within him. Korin had already lost his parents. The same must be true for her. They had lost their village in an instant and only had each other left. After everything was taken from him, he refused to lose her, too.

  Korin wrenched free from Jenna's grasp and picked up a wooden pole from the broken tanning rack. He put himself in front of Jenna, brandishing the splintered end at the behemoth.

  "I'll distract the behemoth. Hurry and escape!" Korin cried.

  "Wait, Korin—"

  But her cries fell on deaf ears.

  Maybe it was his foolish audacity, but he caught the behemoth's attention by waving the stick. Korin moved away quickly from the others, successfully keeping its eyes trained on him.

  However, a strange voice not of Jenna's caused him to dig his heels into the dirt and grind to a halt.

  Brave hunter, you who would face the jaws of death, I offer a boon to protect those you hold dear. In exchange, you must champion always the balance of all things. What say you, Hunter?

  Was it the adrenaline making him hear things? There was no way to be sure, but he would cling to anything for help at this point.

  However, while Korin was distracted, the golgannoth had grown bored of him and flicked its head back to Jenna who was the only one of the group that hadn't yet escaped. She, like Korin, had picked something up. In her hands was the lid of a woven basket, raised like a makeshift shield.

  "Korin, I'm not leaving you! We're getting out together, okay? Stay put, I'm coming to get you!" Jenna shouted.

  At this rate—

  Hunter, the voice called to him again. Devote yourself to the hunt, and with each stride, walk in balance with nature. I give you this one blessing. Aim true, strike true.

  The stick in Korin's hand vibrated for a moment before going still again. A strange and foreign magic flowed through it, but his confidence in what the voice had said guided him.

  "Over here, you big lizard!" Korin hurled the stick without any intention of hurting it, but when it turned its massive head, the jagged and pointed end plunged into its left eye.

  The golgannoth recoiled and let loose an ear splitting roar.

  It whirled around and struck Korin with a massive tail. He crashed into the ruins of a shack. Every bone and muscle in his body was screaming in agony. It hurt too much to even cry.

  This was it. He got its attention, but he could hardly raise his head to see if Jenna had escaped.

  Get out of here, he wanted to tell her.

  Korin watched helplessly as a jet of flames gushed from the behemoth's jaws, but a giant of a man who wielded a greatshield as large as himself came between them.

  Horns sounded in the distance.

  "Shae, get the boy out of here! Aurella and Buckwic, with me on the golgannoth!" the man shouted.

  A young woman with a dark complexion and pointed ears had picked Korin up. Her cool hands were a welcome relief to his aching body. Somewhere beyond his vision, electrified arrows punctured the golgannoth's scale hide, causing it to howl in pain. Another joined the battle wielding a massive, two-handed sword. When its wielder slammed the blade into the ground, spikes of ice sprung forth to force the behemoth back.

  "Stay with me, cub!" the woman named Shae urged, but Korin couldn't stay awake any longer. The last thing he saw were the three brave hunters facing the golgannoth down in a sea of flames, their waist sashes embroidered with the icon of a gryphon on its hind legs fluttering behind them.