Prologue

The stampede was faster than it had any right to be, given the circumstances.

The ten-year-old girl crouched low, keeping her balance as the hooded mantle and robe whipped around her suit of armour.

After successfully jumping down onto a massive Tortoise, Meiko did all she could to avoid falling under one of the twenty lanes of identical beasts.

Each Tortoise was bright purple and the size of a castle, surrounded by others like it: one big eye at the front of the shell with a head resembling some kind of giant Lamprey.

Carefully timing it just right, she jumped on the nearest shell before slipping down and catching the tail. All the while, she avoided the neighbouring creature with its circular stump ending on a set of pin-shaped teeth, constantly snapping at thin air.

How?  Meiko thought, climbing onto the tail. How did this happen? How did I end up chasing a man into the afterlife? A man who didn’t even belong in my world? A man who cared for me, even when it hurt him so? I made a promise that I would grow up big and strong, to protect him, just as he protected me. So I won’t let him down; I won’t let him fade. 

Wait for me, Papa.

Please don’t leave me alone.