He says it again. And again, desperation cracking his words as his head swings wildly between the advancing group. His eyes lock on to my face. “Please. There are children—”
The strike slices through his neck.
Screams ring out across the camp, people erupting into panicked movement as Tharn’s eyes dull. Blood spatters the ground in a spray as he slowly drops. First to his knees, and then to the floor.
Neutral, he had said. Over and over again.
There are children here.
I don’t remember getting off my horse. My boots stop me from slipping as I race across the clearing. In a corner of my mind, I can hear Cindral, shouting my name. The scream claws its way up my throat and out of my mouth, wordless and shrill as I aim it in his direction.
Fuck your orders.
There are sixteen soldiers, but the shadows against the shelters make it look like dozens. They swarm in every direction, so quickly that I can’t pick out a place to help, to stop it. Ducking into those shelters, looming shadows against illuminated walls, facing screaming and begging that cuts off one by one as they flow across the camp like a disease. Wherever they move, silence follows.
Screaming villagers break cover and dart from their shelters, racing for the protection of the forest. I spot a gold-clad male Lightbringer following a boy, the high-pitched sobbing enough to identify his youth.
Glorious, glistening gold, darting through the trees. Beautiful. A lineage to be proud of. I always was, watching the military parades from my window. My father created a force that will soon annihilate the Darkwielder scourge for good.
A force that slaughters the people in this village without question or thought.
All I have to do is play my part.
I am a Lightbringer.
My hand raises.
I have a mission to complete. I have my orders.
Butthis—
The soldier is gaining on the boy.
It’s the father of the little girl. He has his own children waiting for him at home, safe and warm, yet he hunts someone else’s child in the cold and the dark and rips their safety from beneath their feet.
He’s a Sharder. They work with tactical bursts of light rather than delicately crafted weapons, not enough luminth to risk wasting it. Typical soldier level. The burst he levels at the boy strikes a tree above his head, just missing him.
The next one will not miss.
I force myself to stop. I’m too far away for my daggers to be useful. I need something else. Something faster. My fingers tremble when I lift them, sketching an outline in my mind and shifting my hands in rapid movements as the strands of luminth draw together.
The glow attracts the Lightbringer’s attention. My fellow soldier slows, pointing at the escaping boy and shouting something back that I don’t catch, though I get the gist.
Finish him.
I lift the bow, holding it lightly and resting it in thevbetween my thumb and index finger. Taking a breath, I nock the arrow and pull back.
A quick death.
The arrow meets his throat, just above the line of his breastplate. He staggers back, his mouth flopping, eyes wide with shock.
For his daughter.
The boy vanishes from sight as the Lightbringer falls, but I’m already turning back.
Carnage. It spreads out, blood and bodies and crying, although there’s far less of that now. Some of the bodies are small. Too small for this.
But others are still hiding, even as the shelters are set alight, the flames catching and entwining. Some are fighting, a handful attempting to beat off a Lightbringer unit, and my chest aches as they’re cut down, too far for me to intercede. My feet move swiftly, another arrow taking shape as I aim for the female, Iliria, where she stands over a crumpled woman. She twists at the last moment, and the fleck of the arrow skims her cheekbone.
