SKULLSWORN
Prologue
This is a story I never intended to tell. I thought, when I finally walked away from you all those years ago, that I was taking the tale with me. I thought, because it happened to me, because I seemed to stand at the center of everything that happened, that is was my story—but that’s not how stories work. A tale belongs only partly to the teller—even the wildest fabrication requires the collaboration of a listener, and this is no fabrication. It is the truth—or as close to the truth as I can come, so many years later—and there are other characters in it. This story is theirs as much as it is mine, but since they are dead, I’m the one left to piece it together. You were the only other person who was there, who survived straight through to the end, but you didn’t know what was happening. You couldn’t. I should have told you a long time ago, but it wasn’t until much later that I realized this story is yours, too, yours as much as it is mine. It’s late, but I’m telling you now.
I went to Dombang for love…
