There were only two survivors.

Everna found them huddled inside a small pocket in the cliff face, their faces smeared with dirt and soot and streaked with tears. The oldest of the two, a scrawny young man named Dain, escaped the worst of the flames. Tiny holes, blackened at the edges, dotted the sleeves of his rough-spun shirt. The exposed skin beneath was raw and angry. A large blistering burn covered most of his left cheek, but he was otherwise unharmed.

His younger sister Adela wasn't as lucky. The flames had eaten away at her skirt until the ends stopped mid-thigh; blistering burns covered the fronts of both her legs. The backs of her thighs that had taken the brunt of the flames, the skin blackened and the flesh beneath browned. She slumped against her brother's side, head lulling and eyelids fluttering.

Everna had seen many a gruesome sight, but to see a child reduced to such a state was enough to turn her stomach.

"I need to contact Osain," Lisette said. She pulled her cloak from her shoulders and carefully draped it over Adela's legs, then motioned for Everna to follow her down the mountain. When they were far enough away, she continued, "We need Leah, or, at the very least, a healing potion, and soon. The girl likely won't last the night, if she makes it another few hours."

"How? We're two days out," Everna said. "She'd never make it in time."

Lisette reached into her leathers and withdrew a small badge. Made of polished silver and simplistic in design, it featured a simple shield behind a downward-pointing longsword. Magic, strong enough for her to feel even without contact, radiated from the emblem.

"Shadowguard has a few tricks up its sleeve," she explained. "Our badges have many enchantments, one of which is a one-use communications spell. It's an emergency precaution."

"That doesn't explain how Leah would get here."

“The safe houses have teleportation circles, which are connected to the badges. Whoever’s at the safe house can be here in seconds if need be.”

Everna frowned. “Why didn’t we do that in the first place? We could’ve just teleported to the informant and been done with it.”

“You don’t have a badge, so you wouldn’t be able to use the circle. Besides, its a one-way trip. There’s no circle in Windhollow. We’d have to ride back anyway.”

“You couldn’t just give me one?”

Lisette shook her head. “Too much of a liability.”

Everna pursed her lips. She supposed it would be, if she understood correctly. If Shroud had somehow gotten their hands on a badge, they’d have unrestricted access to Shadowguard’s members — unrestricted access to her. Osain had said their main goal was to keep her away from Shroud; it would be foolish to give them the means to reach her.

"See if Dain knows anything else. It's almost certain Shroud's responsible, but until we're sure, we can't ignore the possibility that this may be an unfortunate coincidence."

With that, Lisette returned to the village.

Everna followed the narrow, meandering path up the side of the mountain. When she reached the mouth of a shallow cave, she found Dain standing at the entrance, staring down at the burning village, his hands curled into fists at his side. It was a horrific sight that left her with a hollow ache in her chest that refused to abate. She could only imagine how he must feel; Windhollow was his home.

"Hopefully, someone should be here soon with something to help your sister," Everna said, trying to emulate the Leah’s soothing tone. She’d never been good at dealing with people in distress. "I know it's unpleasant, but in the meantime, I need to know what happened."

He shook his head, strands of singed blond hair falling in his face. "I don't know. Honest. Adela an' I were playin' ball on the edge of the village when this big ol' ball of flame came flyin' down from the mountains. I barely pulled her out of the way of the damned thing before it swallowed her up."

An unsettling weight pitted in her gut. Limited as her understanding of magic was, she knew the spell he described. Fireballs were devastating, and for that reason, they were highly favored by mages. She'd learned the hard way to avoid sitting in the front row during duels hosted by the academy, but the smoking remains of a village served as a pointed reminder of how destructive magic was.

Half-burnt chunks of wood, singed stone, and large pieces of roof lay scattered along the edge of the village, as if propelled outwards by a massive, fiery explosion. The stone foundations of the outermost houses bore damage consistent with a sudden burst of force, cracked and pushed several inches off their original position.

"Did you see what caused it? A caster, perhaps? Or possibly some creature that lives in the mountains? Something or someone carrying something that looked odd?"

"I didn't see nothin' but the fireball, miss. It just came streakin' out of the rock and, boom! the entire village's burnin'." Dain looked up to the sky for a moment, then added, "Though, I saw a couple of strange folk in black robes, hoods and the likes, wanderin' 'round a few hours 'fore it happened. Ma said they looked like some cultist types an' told us to stay 'way from 'em."

The description sounded more apt of the Inquisitors, but given they were well beyond Inverness's borders, she could only assume Shroud's agents dressed similarly. They must've tracked down the informant and moved to silence him before he could pass on the information regarding her importance to them.

A bitter taste flooded her mouth and, suddenly, she found it difficult to look at the siblings. Dain was not as calm as he appeared. She saw it in his eyes, hollow and haunted, as he looked between the remains of his village and his sister, now lying on the floor of the cave. His hands shook at his sides, and more than once he swayed on his feet as if he might collapse at any moment.

"Is she... She's gonna be alright, ain't she?" he asked.

"We'll do everything we can to help her," Everna assured him.

Adela did not look well. It seemed within the last few minutes, her condition deteriorated. Sweat slicked her pallid skin, strands of sandy blonde waves clinging to her face and neck. Her chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, her breathing strained and uneven. Darkened splotches stained Lisette's cloak.

And it was all Everna’s fault.

"I don't know what we're gonna do," Dain said with a shuddering sigh. His foot tapped frantically against the ground. "There ain't no other villages 'round here. There ain't nowhere for us to go."

Swallowing the bitter taste of guilt, Everna drew in a deep breath. Then, she forced what she hoped was a calming smile and said, "Inverness is a two-day ride to the east. If nothing else, I can send you to someone who'd take the two of you in."

After indirectly destroying their lives, it was the least she could do.

Dain frowned. "You'd do that? Ma said kingdom folk don't care for us Wilders. Ain't their land, ain't their problem."

"My parents used to be adventurers. It wouldn't be the first time they've helped someone in need," she said. "Even if they couldn't take you in, there's always a farm or two looking for extra help."

Her parents wouldn't turn them away, especially not Adela. Not when they learned of what happened. They'd encountered something similar in the past; Mayor Ashburn had told her the story, as her parents refused to speak of it. She could only hope fate was kinder to Dain and Adela.

"For now, you need to rest," she continued. "Your injuries might not be as severe as Adela's, but you're certainly not okay."

"I’m fine," Dain argued. He reached up to prod at his burnt cheek. "It don't even hurt."

Everna bit back a sigh. Shock was an odd phenomenon, one that varied between individuals. Some people froze up,, while others carried on, laughing and joking as if they weren't bleeding out on the floor. She saw it in the tavern after brawls; patrons who punched through windows and cut themselves to the bone or took a bottle to the head and insisted they were fine.

It happened to her when she shot herself in the foot. It took a full minute before she'd realized what had happened, and another for the pain to set in. By the time she and Andryll reached the town's walls, she'd been a sobbing mess. Then came an inexplicable bout of irritation, and her father had to restrain her while her mother removed the arrow. She couldn't look at her foot for a week.

"I know what shock looks like," she argued. "I know you might not feel it now, but I promise you, you will soon enough."

"Then I suppose it's good I got here when I did."

Everna nearly leapt out of her skin when Wil appeared beside her, a bottle of shimmering amber liquid in hand. A tight frown pulled at his lips when his gaze fell on Adela. He lifted the edge of the cloak, tentative, and grimaced.

"That's not good. She'll be lucky if she can walk again, even after the potion."

Panic flashed in Dain's eyes.

Everna slammed her fist into Wil's shoulder blade. "Don't say that! Gods above, your bedside manner is atrocious! Where's Leah?"

Wil threw her a half-hearted glare as he popped the cork off the potion and handed it to Dain. "Clergy called her back. Apparently, it couldn't wait. Osain sent Cedric and I instead."

"I thought you were supposed to be in the capital."

"I'd just stepped out of the circle when Cedric shoved me back into it," he said. "You can thank the gods for it, too. Cedric almost forgot to bring the potions."

He reached into the leather satchel tossed over his shoulder, the golden sword of the Golden Lady stitched into the front flap and produced another healing potion. Everna couldn't help but marvel at the potion; she'd never seen one so vibrant before. The ones her parents had, and the ones sold by the clergies, weren't the best quality, the amber hue of the liquid muddied and dull.

To her surprise, Wil pulled the cloak aside and poured the potion over her legs. It set to work no sooner than the glittering liquid touched her skin. Her skin shifted from angry red to pale ivory, the cracked and burnt edges moving to cover the raw, oozing cracks along her calves. The flesh on the back of her legs faded from a gut-wrenching brown to bright red before the skin knitted itself together. In less than a minute, she looked as if the flames had never touched her.

Wil held the empty bottle aloft, his brows raised. "Ah. I forgot Leah's potions were insanely potent."

"Just how blessed is she?" Everna asked.

"Probably not more than the average High Priestess," Wil said. "It's the way she brews them, I think. Or the spell she uses."

Upon seeing how quickly Adela's wounds healed, Dain guzzled his own potion down.

"Thank you. Both of you." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I don't... I don't know what we'd've done if you folk hadn't turned up."

Again, Everna forced a smile. "I told you we'd do whatever we could to help. We weren't just going to ignore the situation."

Especially since it's my fault, she thought. The informant wouldn't have been here if it weren't for me.

"We'll take them back with us when we leave. Osain will want to question them," Wil said, standing. "We need to find the others quickly. It's not a good idea to linger. Whoever's responsible might still be in the area."

Leaving the siblings to rest, they retreated down the mountain and into what remained of the village.

There was nothing left. Not a single building remained untouched. Foundations sat at crooked angles, the stone blackened and shattered. Massive scorch marks, which shot off in every direction, peppered the main dirt road. Roofs sat crooked atop skeletal frames. Charred planks were driven into foundations. A half-melted metal bucket hung from a shattered beam wedged through a brick wall.

The air reeked of burnt flesh, burnt hair, and singed oak. Bones crunched beneath her feet, brittle and snapping like twigs. Tendrils of white smoke rose from the wreckage. As the breeze drifted past, a pile of smoldering embers flared. Her foot caught on something — a blistered arm disconnected from its body.

The silence that engulfed the village rang in her ears.

"Why would they do this?" Everna asked, her gaze falling on the tattered remains of a child's toy — a child that, for all she knew, could be the ashes beneath her feet. "What could Shroud possibly gain from this... from this? Why not just kill the informant and be done with it?"

"The only ones who understand Shroud's motives are the ones as twisted as they are," Wil said. There was nothing in his eyes as he looked upon the wreckage, only staunch indifference. "They revel in the chaos — the death and carnage. Nothing brings them greater satisfaction than watching the innocent suffer."

Everna was not as delusional as many thought. She knew people were capable of horrendous atrocities. She'd seen evidence of such during her years at the academy, but never of this magnitude. This was more than a business deal gone wrong, more than a crime of passion, and more than a deadly domestic dispute. It was pure, unadulterated slaughter.

How could anyone willingly set an entire village ablaze, knowing it would kill dozens, if not hundreds, of innocent people?

She must've voiced that thought aloud, for Wil said, "Evil doesn't need a reason to be evil. It just is. You can't make sense of it because there is no sense to it. They're beyond human comprehension because they have no humanity. They're monsters — vile and wicked monsters."

"Gods, this is... it's all my fault," she said, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. "If it weren't for me, the informant wouldn't... Shroud wouldn't have—"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Wil said, the slightest touch of sympathy in his voice. "We don't know what information the informant had."

"The reason Shroud wants me dead. That's what the informant had. Because of that..." She allowed her words to trail off as she motioned to the devastation. "How many people are dead because of it?"

"It's not—"

His words dissolved into a shrill whine as an inexplicable sense of confusion washed over her. The village swam before her eyes, a vague and incomprehensible blur similar to a dream. Her legs refused to cooperate, wobbling uncertainly beneath her. Then they buckled. She reached for the nearby building, the remains of a wooden beam scraping against her hand. Her hand fumbled, her fingers refusing to bend.

Her thoughts faded into an incongruous garble, fragmented and hazy. She couldn't focus on anything for more than a few seconds before her gaze wandered, the shattered remains of a house morphing into a pile of rubble, then into a swath of green. The ringing in her ears dimmed and, for but a moment, she heard the muffled sound of clashing blades, distant and tiny beneath the noise.

Wil stumbled past her, holding his side. By the time she noticed the blood seeping between his fingers, he'd disappeared. A flash — the gleam of metal — streaked past her face. Belatedly, she felt the beam tremble beneath her hand. Even as her gaze fell on the dagger embedded in the wood mere inches from her fingers, she couldn't grasp the significance of it.

Was there a significance?

A pained cry rose from her left — at least, she assumed it was her left. She couldn't tell which way was which. Or which way was up. She didn't even know where she was.

Something wasn't right.

That thought alone broke through the haze of whatever spell had fallen over her, but it was a sharp crack that thrust her back into reality. Everything snapped into sharp focus — the ruined village, the sharp bite of splinters digging into her hand, the acrid smell of charred wood and burnt flesh.

Once more, the ringing clash of steel touched her ears. This time, when she turned her head, it obeyed. The sight before her may as well have sent her into another bout of dazed confusion.

Wil lay on his back, his arms trembling as he struggled to hold his assailant at bay. She followed the length of the sword bearing down on him and found it belonged to a figure robed in black. It loomed over him, a gaping void in the shape of a human — a shadow against the dreary mountains which towered in the distance. Blood dripped from the edge of its sword.

The figure raised its sword and slammed it down onto Wil's once more. Wil's arms buckled beneath the brunt force of the blow, and the figure took advantage of the presented opportunity. It dragged its blade along the length of Wil's sword until the blade caught the cross guard. A careless flick of its wrist sent his sword clattering to the ground.

"You put up a good fight," the figure said, his voice distinctively masculine and laced with patronizing glee. "But not good enough."

Wil glanced at her. At first there was confusion, then a silent plea, as if begging her to run while she had the chance. As he turned his attention back to his assailant, Everna saw nothing but resigned acceptance in his eyes as the figure raised his sword once more.

The novels had it wrong she realized. The world did not slow. It did not come to a screeching halt. There wasn't even enough time for her blood to run cold as the horrible reality of the situation dawned on her; one of them would not walk away from this fight.

Without a single second of hesitation, the sword came down.

Ashes

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