I left the market and joined the guard, training with them until a fine sheen of sweat coated my skin.
Dusk was approaching when they broke for the day, so I took to the woods and resumed my never-ending quest, sheathing my sword at my side. The dagger strapped to my trouser leg was a solid and comforting weight. I lifted my face to the cold air. The snowhad stopped, and an icy breeze dried the sweat from my skin as I walked through the forest, over ground I knew better than the lines and curves of my own hands.
I briskly stalked through the crowd of trees, moving through the mental grid I’d constructed long ago as the night settled around me.
Gradually, I realized it felt quieter than usual. It was just my footsteps in the eerie stretch of silence. Even the wind had died and fallen flat.
There was a stillness that didn’t usually exist in these trees teeming with life, with all manner of pulsing things that stirred and hummed and rustled.
It reminded me of another night, ten years ago, when magic swept over the land. Unleashed from its cage, it had crept out to feed, tofeast.
And found me.
I unsheathed my dagger, hands trembling with anticipation.
Could it beher? Had she finally returned?
I plunged deeper into the woods, my strides quickening, racing in tempo with my heart as I let impulse and intuition guide me.
Something was coming.
Something was here.
The air before me was so dark I could scarcely see my hand in front of my face. I stopped to catch my breath, leaning against a tree, and that was when I smelled it. Drawing deep gulps of air into my lungs, I tasted it.
Smoke.
Lifting my nose, I sniffed, feeling very much like a beast of the woods then. Turning in a swift circle, I set out and followed the smell, my pace accelerating until I was running for the village,home. My stomach knotting and dipping as the scent intensified, hitting my nose, acrid and pungent.
Fire.
As I neared the village, red-gold light ribboned through the trees and I felt the rising heat on the air. A red miasma spread across the sky, pushing out the night.
No, no, no, no.Not my home. My people. Da.
I ran faster, harder, arms and legs pumping, blood throbbing in my veins, casting me down the hill into the melting heat, through air that thickened, crackling and popping and hissing.
I jerked to a hard stop atop the hill overlooking the village and took in the scene.
The impossible scene.
The town aflame beneath winged giants. Attacking.Devouring.
It was too late.
Iwas too late.
Cinders snapped and danced on the wind, reaching my body, singeing me, the fiery flecks searing through my clothes. I ignored the pain—could only stare, gawk.
Now I knew.
The magic I felt in the woods tonight derived from no witch. It was this. Them.
Dragons.
Beasts that shouldn’t be...diving through the night that glowed red, their wings flapping, agitating the air with such power that I felt the breeze they stirred where I stood.
The heat from the burning village pulsed toward me, followed by the stink of death. I staggered back, a gust of embers-soaked wind tearing at my eyes, tugging my hair.
