Weeks.
Months.
However long it takes to rebuild Loxley.
My home is gone.
The bustle has calmed, but the overflow of extra people inside the Guild is apparent. With the shortages of rooms and space, people are camped down every passage and corner.
I wander through the halls, stopping to say hello to all the familiar faces whenever I can. A few children have set up a game of dice on the stone floor. Their cheeks still ruddy from ash and soot, but they smile wide as they play round after round.
“Sam!” they call, their smiles beaming. “Come play with us!” My chest tightens. I kneel down and kiss each of their heads.
“Maybe in a little while.” Their smiles fade but only briefly before they start up a new game.
My stomach clenches as I make my way past a mother and her two children, napping on the ground, a bed of ivy under their heads like pillows.
Turning the corner, I peer into the greenhouse. Cots have been lined up inside so Tallulah can work on those most injured in her own space. I watch through the window as she chats withAgnes while tenderly treating an older woman who I quickly realize is Marian. Her white hair is stained gray from ash. Her hands are red and blistered, but when Tallulah brushes a strand of hair from her face, she smiles. As if Tallulah’s touch and presence alone has eased her pain.
I make round after round, stopping to chat with those who are not resting. With each recount of the Loxley fires, my guilt grows heavier and a pain forms behind my eyes.
I worry that the lead in my shoulders has become permanent as I sit with Thomas, one of Sorin’s right hand men from Loxley.
“It was a normal day, Sam.” He wipes his hands with a cloth, attempting to free them from the soot still stained from yesterday. It’s still smeared on his cheeks, across his lightly freckled nose. Even his light auburn hair has a coating of ash. “Goats and chickens had been fed. Wards had been checked. We were just about to begin preparations for the full moon when we first smelled the smoke.”
“Where did it start?” I readjust my position on the ground, crossing my legs.
Thomas tosses the cloth down before leaning against the stone wall.
I shouldn’t make him recall this so soon. Sorin would?—
“It started at your house.” His eyes find mine. “By the time Ulric and I made it, the house was completely engulfed. We couldn’t save anything.”
My throat tightens further. I fold my hands together in my lap to conceal their shaking.
“Then,” Thomas continues, “that’s when we saw the arrows.”
“Arrows?”
He closes his eyes. “Arrows tipped in fire rained down from every direction, Sam.” His gaze meets mine again. His blue eyes, glassy with tears. “Dozens and dozens at a time. I’ve never seen anything like it. They burned your home first. Then hit everyroof in the village. Every larder. The barns. The stables.” He shudders, pinching the bridge of his nose. “There's nothing left but stone and rubble, Sam. And my parents—” He shakes his head again.
The pain in my throat intensifies as I attempt to swallow past the lump forming there. “I’m so sorry, Thomas.”
He turns away, trying desperately to wipe his eyes unnoticed.
“Ulric told me you helped get people out. Helped get them here.” I grab his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I owe you everything.”
A tear slips down his cheek, but he brushes it away quickly. As if he hopes I wouldn’t see.
“Who could have done this?” His voice shakes as he presses the heel of his palm to his eyes. Thomas is close to Elora’s age, perhaps only twenty three, but I often forget given how mature he’s always held himself. Until right now, with the shake of his voice and the tears staining his cheeks. The loss of his home and parents settling into the faint creases of his face.
My heart constricts knowing the burden he’ll wear, thinking there was something more he could have done. He shouldn’t have been there to care for Loxley alone.
It should have been me.
“They knew right where the break in the wards were,” Thomas says. “They waltzed right in as if they had been there before.”
My stomach turns in on itself.
