The Witch and the Beast

Ashaf is a quiet, unassuming man with delicate features, a heavy coffin lashed to his back, and an entourage of black crows forever circling overhead. Beside him walks Guideau, a feral, violent girl with long fangs and the eyes of a beast. When this ominous pair arrives without warning in a town held firmly in a witch's grasp, its people have no idea what her presence truly means. The town's ruler is a witch whose tattooed body serves as a conduit for potent magic. To her grateful citizens, she has presented herself as a champion—the very hero who protects them. But Ashaf and Guideau see straight through her deception. They live by a single, unbreakable creed: wherever a witch goes, only curses and disasters follow in her wake. Driven by scores that demand settling, the two will let nothing derail their purpose. Anyone foolish enough to bar their path—whether an enraged mob or a full army garrison—will be cast aside without the slightest hesitation.