“The girls!”
Racing down the lane, I spill out into the village square. The farrier’s shop is destroyed, nothing left except for his forge—
“His death…” I whisper.
When I looked into his eyes, and saw him aflamed, in the throes of his final miseries, I got it wrong. I wasn’t seeing an accident at his work. I was seeing…this.
He was burned, like all the villagers were, good and bad.
What about those girls, I think desperately. Is there any chance the eldest one, who took care of the others, got them out? Had the way she kept them from their father all those years helped her survive when the purifiers came?
I picture those children cowering in that filthy kitchen, with all those chicken bones on the table.
I keep going, although really, what for. The marketplace is obliterated, the stalls the vendors would cycle through nothing but ash, the central gazebo where the mayor would make his pompous announcements just a partial roof and some singed steps.
TheSPsymbols have been painted on the lane, on what’s left of the shops, on those few row houses which have partially survived—
The sound of hoof falls precedes Merc’s arrival in the village square, and he’s as grim as I’ve ever seen him as he strides over to me, leading both horses along.
Before I think about it, I run to him and he captures me against him, holding me tight.
“I am sorry,” he says into my hair.
I pull back. “It came from Prosperitus. Only the royal court there has enough manpower to do… this.”
Breaking away, I pace around, seeing only details I cannot abide: Part of a burned hand clawing its way out of a cluster of blackened boards, the skeleton of a young child held by the remains of a parent, someone’s shoes kicked off, perhaps as they tried to run from palace soldiers riding fast horses with sharp swords and torches over their shoulders.
“They would have killed the men first,” I say hoarsely. “And then moved to the women and children.”
I cover my eyes. Then rub them. Neither helps get the images out of my mind.
“And then they burned it all to the ground… and left the symbols of salvation drawn in the blood of innocents.”
There’s great evil in the Fulcrum. But at least one can fight that front and center.
Pernicious superstition is a beast made of shadows and smoke.
“They might have lived.” I look at Merc. “If we had fought the Dark King last night, they might have lived—”
“Sorrel—”
“—and they could have stayed here. They could have lived their lives with their children, in their homes, behind the wall—”
“Sorrel.”
The way he says my name gets through to me and I wheel around. As I look at him, I know that I’m receiving another lifelong memory of the man: The way he stands there, the reins of the horses in one hand, that broadsword handle peeking over his shoulder, his boots planted like certainly, ifhehad been here, the attack would have gone down differently… is something I will never forget.
At least I’m no longer worried he will leave me. We’re in this together.
Whatever it may be.
Whatever may come.
Eighty-EightWhereupon Losses Are Tallied.
“You cannot go to Prosperitus.”
As Merc speaks, I close my eyes and still see everything that’s around us, all the death and destruction. Like my lids are nothing but windowpanes.
