Not the sharp tang of something newly burned, but the heavier scent of lives already turned to ash.
I hate that smell.
“It was worse a few cycles ago,” Varen, the village headman, says as we walk. His shoulders are bowed under a weight I can’t lift with any power I possess.
“We’ve rebuilt what we could. The rest…” He gestures toward the charred remains of a house where only three walls still stand.
A child sits in the doorway, tracing lines in the dirt with a stick.
“We… we leave it as reminder.”
Alina walks at my side.
She has not spoken much since we arrived, but her eyes never stop moving.
Over the cracked foundations.
The tarps strung between broken walls.
The makeshift shelters dug into the cliffs when the SoulTakers’ fire rained from the sky.
She watches. She counts. She measures.
There is something profoundly grounding about it.
“This used to be the main square,” Varen says, stopping at an open patch of earth where the outlines of old stalls are still visible. “We hold the names here now.”
The names are stones.
Hundreds of them.
Each one carved with a sigil or a few careful lines of script.
Some have flowers laid before them.
Some have toys.
One has a single boot.
Alina’s breath catches.
“These are all—” She swallows, voice thin. “All from one raid?”
“Two,” Varen answers quietly. “The first took our Dreamwright. The second took half our workers.”
My hands curl into fists.
Alina looks at the stones for a long time, then at the cliffs where new shelters have been dug.
The wind tugs at her hair, dark strands slipping free around her face.
I have been keeping my distance.
Walking a half-step ahead.
Not touching.
Not looking at her too long in case I forget why I must not want the thing I very clearly want.
