Where were you, when your world ended?

  I remember asking my mother once, before she passed, what the end of the world would look like. She always told me I had a habit of saying things that caught people off guard, but after a surprised look and a few seconds of thought she told me that it would be something to scare even the bravest men in the world. That the sky would fall, that the grim ocean would open up and spit out all its vilest creatures onto the land, that all the great knights would stand together against a dragon so large it’s very figure blotted out the sun, and the fight they had would decide if the world of men would continue for another thousand years, or pitter out like the flame of a candle with no more wick.

  I always liked her stories. We had a habit of making scary tales up and sharing them with one another. There were some nights when she came up with a story so terrible I hid under the bed or with our dog Varric, waiting for whatever monster she had imagined to come find me.

  In those times she would find me within a few minutes, her voice as clear and beautiful as a summer meadow. She’d tell me it wasn’t true, and we’d eat our bread and go to sleep.

  I hadn’t thought about those times in years, but today I found myself wishing for the simplicity of someone telling me what I imagined was coming was not real, and that everything would be all right.

  I stood on the belltower of the church of the Stone Martyr, the smell of ash meeting my nose, and the sound of screams meeting my ears. It was one of the tallest buildings in the city, and it presented a fantastic view.

  The midday sun peeked through the clouds, shining over a landscape of stone brick and shaped wood standing meekly around a towering castle of four keeps made of a mixture of glittering blue stone. Something to remind the rest of us how much bigger the people who live in it are. I’ve been proud of it, jealous of it, quaked in its shadow. It had dominated my view for as long as I could remember, and it had done so for a dozen generations of people who have called this place home.

  Never once did anything else in the city steal attention quite like the Shimmer keep. Not until today.

  The west city wall of Dorsland was burning. Flame was spewing into the sky as what I could only guess where spellwhispers marched through the streets and chanted in their foreign tongue, spewing fire and death wherever they went. I could see it flowing like waves over homes and businesses, spreading further and further with every second that passed me by. A conflagration moving ever onward.

  It felt like the world was going to end.

  I twitched almost violently, my mouth snapping shut as the reality of it struck me like a physical blow. The siege had been going on for months now, and the criers had said our city could stand for years more, that reinforcements from Roanland itself, the best of the kingdoms, would come to honor the first knightly pact and see us safe. I had never even considered the pitfall in that kind of proclamation. The trap hidden in the words.

  One of those things couldn’t be true without the other.

  The Ferric-nar had broken through, and we were completely at their mercy.

  I shook my head, blinking past tears at a rogue wave of heat in the air, remembering I had a job to do.

  With far more effort than it should have taken, I turned, facing the behemoth of iron and brass I had been babysitting for a year now, my shaking hands reaching for the ragged length of rope dangling beneath it. I pulled with all my might, and any other time I’d have grimaced at the pain of my hands sliding roughly across the coarse fibers.

  It took several moments longer than I’d have liked, but eventually…

  Clang

  So close it was deafening. I could almost feel peoples ears perking up at the sound of the bell ringing this early into the day. It was only the early afternoon, and everyone was already on edge.

  Clang

  Twice was supposed to mark the beginning or the end of each day, when workers left their homes for toil or left their work for rest. They would know this was not the reason for the sound they heard today.

  Clang

  Three pulls marked the end of the solstice. A time to prepare your stocks for winter and celebrate the turn of the season if you were wealthy or lucky enough to have a sure future.

  Clang.

  Four meant diplomacy, speakers from either side of a battle arriving or leaving for discussions. There had been no attempt at parley since the mages had arrived at the head of a horde of slaves. The last time the ferric-nar attacked I was three years old, so I didn’t know for sure, but from what I had heard, they only did that when their position was weak and ours was strong.

  Clang

  Five was a noble marriage, a union between families of import and prestige.

  Clang

  Six pulls were reserved for times of tragedy or grief, like when the lord of Dorsland died, or when the day of the Martyr was held. I grit my teeth as I pulled one last time.

  Clang

  Seven was a black day, when monsters attacked or a plague was declared. It would also serve in times like these to tell the people if the walls were breached and they had to be warned of a sack. It was the only clear way to tell people to seek safety in the face of looters and enemy warriors. Homes would be still be destroyed, people would die, women would be raped, but some might survive.

  It was why the cleric had never bothered me for spending extra time in the day up here, not since the siege had begun. I had thought the task was easy enough, a way to drink wine and stuff myself with community offerings of bread in peace. Doing the same thing downstairs before the day was up would have seen me caned.

  With my work complete I all but leapt for the ladder, climbing down the rungs with a haste that could have killed me if I slipped or lost my grip. Today that concern was far from my mind. I sprinted outside, my bare feet plodding against hay and mud. I cursed myself for not wrapping them.

  I left a trail of splattered footprints in my wake through those hallowed grounds. It was the teachings of the church to never let a place of such holiness know disrepair or uncleanliness. Even before my life was on the line I never much cared for the rules unless they were to my benefit. Today they would go totally ignored.

  Men and women ran throughout the chapel like rats revealed to torchlight. Seeking to flee or prepare or both. I was one of them, slamming into clergy and lightsingers alike in a manner that would see me flogged any other time. In any other time my surroundings would have been a beautiful meeting place between faith and those who spoke it’s stories. A hall of stone walls and carved champions of the past. Our heroes and our martyrs, now watching their followers react to what was likely the end of them.

  I didn’t have my own space, but I slept in a bunkroom just behind the lightspeaker Renault’s study. He liked to be able to hear if anyone was up to no good. I had long learned to avoid spending much time there. Today he was at the head of a group of boys, our newest batch of orphans, yelling “Peace! Peace!”. There was none to be found. No one would be calm anytime soon.

  I’d have left without a word to anyone I knew in this place if I didn’t keep my things there. I burst into the all too packed bunkroom of hay bed spaces and those like me, the people the church had been kind enough to sponsor. I approached my bed in great strides. My trunk was there. I dodged several people as I moved, muttering a simple “sorry as I knocked someone over I hadn’t been able to see. My hands tore the lid open hastily enough that I pinched my fingers, letting out a curse.

  Someone’s hand fell on my shoulder as I shoved aside blankets and a spare pillow for a wooden carving my mother had gifted me, a dragon curled into a ball. I recognized that grip. The feeling was familiar. I knew who it was. I pocketed my prize, looking further as he spoke.

  “Is it true?” I swallowed the twinge of annoyance the deep baritone of that voice brought up to my heart. Delry was eighteen summers old, just a little younger than myself, but he was everything I had never managed to be. He had emerald eyes, a strong frame, and an easy smile that had gotten him and by extension me into trouble on more than one occasion.

  We had been inseparable once, and sometimes I almost felt like we were inseparable still. The chaos almost made me forget, and yet as I looked at him I thought of her, and my teeth clenched.

  It shouldn’t have bothered me, I knew the direction the wind was blowing well before things were official and telling them it did felt like admitting to something. I don’t know what. We had fought a few times over it before he stopped talking to me as I did to him. It didn’t help that most of the time my bruises were far more plentiful than his own, Delry had a way of winning fights with me. I couldn’t even look Samantha in the eye anymore. If I did all I could see was her choosing someone else.

  Neither had spoken to me in weeks, and It had given me a sort of vindictive pleasure to see the guilt in their eyes, before I started to feel alone anyway. It shouldn’t matter now.

  This was far greater than that, and I still cared about them. I didn’t look back at him, my hand finally finding the whittling knife tucked away into a corner. It was supposed to be my fathers, but he took to the sea years before I could remember his face.

  The hand squeezing on my shoulder reminded me I needed to speak.

  “Yes!” I snarled, tucking the blade and the carving my mother had made with it at a loop and a pouch I kept on a belt underneath my robe. I wanted to hit him for wasting time with me. Action was far important than this.

  “Where's the breach?” I was ready to pick up the pace, but his question was far more legitimate than I was expecting. I thought it’d be something stupid.

  “The west wall, they’re already inside. You need to find a way out of the city. You and Samantha.” Saying her name aloud hurt more than I’d care to admit.

  “What about you?” He asked, and I cringed at the concern in his tone and the guilt that followed. The thought of fleeing with them bothered me in a way I knew it shouldn’t have. It would be a distraction I didn’t need. Every moment spent trying to keep someone else safe. I couldn’t be someone's friend from the chapel boys today, I needed to be an just another rat from the alleys.

  I needed to be someone who could look away and run. I had done it before, and without them I could do it again. If they just let me.

  “Forget about me! Just get out of here.” The words were harsher than I meant them to be. “I’ll find my own way.”

  I bristled at the scoff that followed. The annoyance I had been trying to suppress flooding back at the dismissal of my words.

  “Come on, we can’t still be doing this now. I was your friend when you first came in here kicking and screaming, and I’m your friend today! You can’t be a child about this anymore!” The whole room was a cacophony of noise and people scuttling about, arguing or crying or giving up or getting ready to run.

  We were wasting time.

  I gritted my teeth at the accusation, turning to look him in the eye. Even now I could see why Samantha chose him. He looked like I imagined a princeling would. I had a thin frame, but my height and my past had kept the crueler boys from picking a fight without a damned good reason. They avoided Delry for another reason altogether. He was built like a man grown, and I could see the hard muscle of a warrior in training decorating his frame, and his blonde hair draped over a pair of brooding bright emerald eyes and angular face I often wanted to punch in.

  I had heard that description more than once from the younger lightsingers and maids between giggles and whispers when they thought no one was paying attention. Once upon a time I had thought it was funny.

  “We aren’t doing this now. Water under the bridge, but we don’t have much time. It’ll be easier for me to look out for myself without you, and it’ll be easier for you to look after her without me around.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I made to shove past him, people would be trying to get into the inner castle, where the lord Dorsland’s family kept themselves. Few of them would be allowed. More than one story went around about sieges, and when I spoke to the guardsmen about what to expect that had been one of the things I eventually managed to pry out with free wine and a bootlicks attitude.

  I would be going for the Lightspeaker. People came from all around the country to hear his sermons, he was the most important person in the city aside from the lord himself. He had to have a way out somewhere. I was going to follow him. A fist met my stomach well before I could bring that thought into action.

  I took a knee as he spoke, trying to find my wind back. Spitting a quiet “Fuck you” out as I almost curled into a ball. I was ready to return the favour before his words met my ears, and I stopped mid motion.

  “She went to the market today. She wanted something to make peace with you.” I was confused for a moment, wondering what he was talking about, before realization fell over me. There was only one market he could be talking about with that kind of gravity. The dock market, where wares from across the sea and all over the land came to rest. It was in the west quarter of the city.

  My fists clenched, and I restrained the anger and despair that welled at the idea. I wanted to yell at him. Why couldn’t they just give it up? How many times had I tried to cut ties and move on? Now because they couldn’t let go, Samantha was in danger, and in its own special way it was my fault.

  I knew it was a damned fool thing to even think about doing, and yet…

  I could step away from two people I couldn’t stand to look at anymore in a dangerous situation, knowing they were smart enough to look for a way out, and that their chances might honestly be better without me.

  I groaned, and halfway through it became something closer to a scream, before I looked him in the eyes and nodded.

  What I can’t do is abandon a girl I had feelings for to the kind of things that happened to people during a sack. I couldn’t let her find herself a slave in someone pompous mage born noble’s bed chamber. I can’t leave my only real friend to die trying to save her, even if this is the kind of thing most people did that ended with a “and then they died.”

  “We have to find her. If we head to the market-” He nearly shouted, before I shook my head. We couldn’t go there.

  “She would have seen it, that close to the wall and it can’t be missed. she won’t have stayed there long. If we went now we’d have no way of telling where Sam went.” I left unsaid that we’d be running right into the teeth of foreign mages and whatever they were cruel enough to bring into the city.

  Dorsland was far from the largest city in the knightly kingdoms, but it was the capital of this one. There were two miles of buildings and the people inside them between the church and where he wanted us to go. We can’t expect to be lucky enough to run into her along the way. Delry winced, before a finger came up to point at me in a way I knew usually preceded an idea.

  Often bad.

  “She’d go to her family first. Her fathers a thatcher. I’ve been there once, it won’t be far.” I didn’t need to ask him why he knew that, or why he was so sure. Sam never would have picked him if she thought he wasn’t serious. Of course he’d be talking of dowries and the future. I nodded back to him.

  “Then that’s where we’ll go. “

  Delry led the way from the church grounds and to cobbled roadways. It was no better than the church was. We fought a tide of people going in the opposite direction. Guardsmen tried to keep things in order, but panic was already beginning to set in. I had seen the streets this packed only once before, when a parade was held for the lord ascendant after his father had died in his sleep the week before. Roses seemed to rain from the skies themselves, and people cheered from all over the city to celebrate a new lord protector.

  Today was far less of a happy occasion, but the fervor was the same. People yelling and pushing aside others as they groped at any chance of some kind of escape. I don’t even think many of them knew where they were going. The thatched roofed buildings on either side of the road were thirty paces apart, and yet there was barely a few inches to squeeze through on our side of the road. We were luck that people were going mostly in the same direction and no one seemed to have been trampled yet. I knew it would only get worse from here as the populace got closer to the castle or anywhere else they thought to escape.

  The trip would have taken twenty minutes with a clear path and a direct route, but the weight of numbers had us quickly give up on the main pathways and duck into alleys and through homes. We barely managed to reach the place in under an hour. Along the way every instinct I had was telling me to turn around.

  “There!” Delry shouted, pointing to a building as we climbed out of a lofthouse’s side door. I was ready to slap him for the noise, before I almost joined him in the yell. We made it, and it seemed intact.

  The Thatcher’s home was well sized for a city residence. A building of wood and well, thatch, two stories high that could hold several families if it needed to. It was no loft or cabin, but a residence. One with shuttered windows and even iron bars on the lower floor. Even with the city burning I could tell it stood apart from the rest.

  I bet it was helpful for thieves and dissatisfied customers. Not anymore.

  As it was, it was about as much wealth as anyone could expect without being a merchant or a noble, and it would be a target to anyone who saw it. The smoke that steadily rose into the sky as fires spread and warriors marched on now hung over the entire city, a black cloud of choking death that would be visible for miles around. The sun had been shining just an hour ago.

  I ignored the fear that had been bubbling upward from my core ever since I rang the bell, and Delry and I both redoubled our pace. The sound of fighting was far from distant, the ring of steel on steel was so close I could imagine it happening just a few houses down. I could hear the screams now like they were coming from my own throat. Men yelling and fighting and dying as the guards and the knights fell back into the streets.

  The patriotic part of me imagined they were losing ground but losing it only with the greatest of reluctance and no small amount of blood. Giving the people the chance to save themselves if they could. I couldn’t really know for sure.

  I dismissed the thought.

  Dorslanders were the most decorated knights in the kingdoms. We had fought mages before, sent them back across the sea and to their wretched shores dozens of times over the past few centuries. They had to be able to hold long enough for us to find her.

  I saw a spurt of flame reach into the sky just a hundred yards past us, and roars of defiance became the screams of people burning, the pitch of their voices going so high it almost wasn’t human anymoreI could hear dark chanting in the distance, but the words were impossible to make sense of.

  “Vol’Kalak Berel, Fel-” I shook my head, ignoring the demonic tongue for reason and sanity. The front door was unbarred, and Delry was yelling before I could quiet him down. I followed, heart beating in my chest like a war drum.

  “Samantha!” He called, using his bulk to all but trample through a sparse workshop clearly made to welcome guests for business, pushing past stools and stomping for a set of stairs I knew would lead to a living space. He was halfway up before I heard a voice call up from below that made us both freeze.

  “Delry?” It was almost a song,the voice that answered, just as beautiful as its always been. Sam. It couldn’t have been anyone else.

  “Stop!” I yelled, the tone sharp enough to convince him to halt. I gestured in the direction of the voice before I heard a muffled thump. We looked at one another. Words didn’t need to pass between us to act.

  We were both quick to follow the sound, stomping away from the stairs and looking about the room, I was about to call out to her myself when I saw a wooden plank all but fly away from it’s spot on the floor, two hands reaching out from the shadows to grasp at the edge of the gap. We saw her slide through the hole, ignoring the hushed commands of a woman we couldn’t see to ‘keep hidden’.

  Samantha was still in her robes. Not brown woolen cloth or hemp like mine or Delry’s, but a beautiful white silk that clung marvelously to her form, more a dress than a holy person’s attire, but the singers were always like that. She rarely went without it since she had been elevated from her apprenticeship. Her fiery hair fell easily down her frame, cascading down her shoulders in a manner I knew had attracted more than a few listeners to the clergy when she first earned her position.

  An angel come to the earth.

  The shimmering blue of her eyes locked onto the man to my left instantly, a quick smile gracing her lips at the sight of my friend, who knows how many unspoken words passing between them as they stared into one another's eyes. After several painful seconds she looked at me, and I saw an honest delight in her expression that made me all the more guilty for trying to leave without them.

  “H-” my name was on her lips when another voice cut through the room. A well muscled man pulling himself from the crawl space. His hair was as red as hers, but his eyes were harder, and there was no smile on the scarred face that came up to greet me. I took a step back.

  “Damned Girl! There could be more of them coming!” He snarled, dismissing both me and Delry with a sharp glance.”-Get back inside!” I couldn’t help the small piece of satisfaction I felt at his disapproval, even as it left me confused.

  I stared at him, and the plump dark haired woman that started exiting herself. I had never met her parents before today. The wealthy types never seemed to like me very much, and I knew they’d sniff out my intentions long before I was ready to speak of them myself. They were a different sort than I imagined. A man who looked more like a mercenary or a veteran guardsman than a thatcher, and a woman who somehow had a harder look on her face than her husband. It was so firmly opposed to the soft motherhood of her frame that it erased the beauty I knew she had gifted her daughter. The matriarch here wasn’t happy to see either of us.

  “We told you never to come back here!” Her whisper was half a yell. I saw Delry cringe at the accusation. “-You’re already giving us away!” My brow rose at the words. I guessed he would try to present a bride price to them, but I thought he’d give a better impression.

  “I know you don’t approve! I’m not a merchant or some priest, but this isn’t the time for grievances!” There was a weariness in his tone. “-I just need her to be safe!”

  “And she will be, without you eating our food or giving us away before the lord’s men come!”

  I could see zeal and spite in equal measure in her every word. How many, I couldn’t help but wonder, stayed or hid in their homes and expected the greatest knights in the land to save them from the foreigners?

  We didn’t have time for this.

  “Pa, it doesn’t matter. They’re here now! They can stay with us!” There was that same generosity that had led the both of us to deciding to protect her from the other boys. From the looks on her parents' faces I could tell this was not an idea they wanted to explore. I agreed.

  I lifted my palms to the air in a gesture of peace before I spoke.

  “We can’t stay here.” I ignored the harsh stares that came my way at the implication that we were already a group united. “-The fighting is just outside, homes are already burning. They’ll bring the whole place down on your heads.” Nothing about the chaotic din outside gave me hope in the mercy of our attackers.

  “They’ll retake the wall, the knights-” I waved a hand in the woman's direction, gesturing for the silence we were all quickly losing hold of.

  “The spellwhispers are already here. They aren’t showing mercy. Everyone’s trying to get to the inner castle. It could be months before the Roanlanders comes to reinforce. Do you really want to be here while the Ferric-Nar hold this city?”

  Samantha’s mother winced, her eyes flickering over to her husband, and I finally noticed the way he leaned over the table. He was favoring his right leg. I repressed a curse. No blood, and even after their disapproval I imagined Sam wouldn’t be looking at her father with that kind of vindictiveness if he was wounded trying to protect her.

  He was crippled. That man wouldn’t be going anywhere with any kind of speed. The sound of fighting was even louder now, and I would bet if I looked outside a window I’d be able to see it. They heard it too, I could see it on her fathers face. He looked at me desperately, and I saw a dozen different expressions cross his face.

  If he could read my mind he never would have let me take his daughter, run off with her and the man they clearly didn’t want for her. I didn’t even know what we would do, or where we would go. What I did know was that it couldn’t be here.

  So I looked him in the eye like the soldiers did to each other at the bars, like I was ready for violence if he didn’t disagree. A game of chicken to prove there was will backing my words.

  He saw something in my eyes that wasn’t there, and wilted in defeat. He nodded in my direction, giving me a final look as he turned to place his hands on his daughter's shoulders.

  “My girl,” He said. “You have to go with them.” The iron that gave me so much pause had entirely escaped his tone. He just sounded old now. I’ve been a bluff and a liar my entire life. I’d never wanted to live up to my promises more than I did at this moment.

  “Aldrich!” His wife reproached, before he silenced her with a firm look. A particularly loud yell from outside, and the screaming that followed killed her defiance, and within a few painful seconds she seemed to agree. She didn’t say a word after that, just staring daggers at Delry, and me by extension.

  Samantha looked between the two of them, realization dawning on her face.

  “No-” The tears that were already staining her face returned anew, and she leapt to the man. “-We can’t. We could all stay here!”

  Delry took her arm, looking to me for support. “We have to go, they have a better chance without us.”

  I knew it was a lie, but I nodded anyway. “They’ll find a way. We have to go.”

  There might have been some kind of argument from Sam, but Delry didn’t have any patience for it. He grabbed her arm, pulling her along with a desperation that would have had my hackles raised in any other situation. Instead I followed without a word, unable to bring myself to glance back at them. I thought I heard a sob over the clamour as we left, but couldn’t look back to check.

  I always thought there’d be a chance to meet them some other time, when I was better off then a churchboy with no aspirations. I had once said as a joke that my dream was to find a dream.

  The already ebbing flow of people fleeing the carnage had completely come to a stop. The only souls running past us now wore tattered armor, bloodstained weapons, and grim expressions. It was as dark as pitch outside now, lit only by the fires and flame decorating the buildings around us.

  I could see bodies in the streets, men wearing blackened brands on their necks and heavy spears at their side. Others wore chainmail and bore shields with a green beetle emblazoned across them.

  The sounds weren’t just coming from one direction now. The screams and the ringing steel now as much ahead of us as it was behind us.

  “Where are we going? Delry asked, looking nowhere but forward and away from where we stood, I think to the castle, and I didn’t have an answer. I wanted to have a grand design, some sure and certain way we could all leave. I didn’t. If the Headspeaker had a way to safety, he’s used it by now.

  Instead I replied “Away from here.” and silence answered me back. I think if it was the fires alone we might have stood there a while. Three people consumed as much by the sight of the destruction as those who had actually been a part of it. With everything else, and no one to rely on, Delry led the way.

  We ran, coughing as we went. The smoke was heavy in the air now, almost a physical barrier to our escape. I felt it seeping into my throat and it tasted of blood and despair.

  We still needed to avoid the cobbled main paths and dirt walkways, now both to stay out of the way of our defenders, and stay out of sight of the men with brands on their necks who fought them.

  This time our pace was faster. Desperation and less populated streets made it simpler to flee. We stayed flush with the sides of the roads, never straying far from corners and rarely slowing to anything but a rushed jog. It was hardly subtle, stumbling about with stinging eyes and coughing ourselves hoarse, but no one who noticed was in a position to care.

  We passed as a man stumbled from his home, clutching at his midsection and looking blearily at the red coating his hands. We ignored the sounds of screaming coming from a burning home, and the pounding of a door that refused to open.

  Steel rang all the while. Even as people died in their homes and in alleys more died in the brief glances I got of the roads and paths we were trying to avoid. I had always thought it would be more organised. Tests of skill and strength between individuals. Instead it was a pit of desperate people using whatever they could to survive, and make sure someone else didn’t.

  A handful of spearmen in a line frantically holding back dozens of pale skinned men with thorned markings on their necks and a different kind of weapon on each of them. Stabbing and thrashing with shields and unity overcome with sheer number. The first of them took a spiked cudgel to the face, the weapon caving in a visored helm with a wet thunk.

  A lone guardsman tackling a screaming adversary into the wreckage of a horsecart, beating him with fist after gauntleted fist. All the while the flame seemed to chase us, the blaze roaring almost like a living animal as it consumed everything it could reach out and grab.

  It was luck and familiarity that kept us from running into a dead end or , but it seemed like every battle passed or fire avoided left a narrower and narrower space to move in.

  All the while the chanting behind the chaos never seemed to stop. Present always somewhere the fire was, and always there was something almost gleeful in its tone. Something cruel.

  I had seen spell-whispers before, in a traveling show. The presenter had said magic was as much an addiction as a gift. A woman made water dance to her rhythm, and sprayed the crowd with a few guttural phrases and a flutter of her eyelashes. When she spoke the words it was with the same excitement I could hear now from around every corner.

  “Gods, they’re everywhere!” Sam cried, and neither me nor Delry had the strength to reassure her.

  It only got louder the more we ran, the fire and the words controlling it. How we hadn’t been noticed I didn’t-

  I blinked as we ran, the sound of a snapped finger barely registering in my ear before I flinched, hissing as a stray ember caught the fabric of my robe around my shoulder, swatting at the flame it birthed like it was a snake curling around my neck. I redoubled my efforts when instead of weakening or puttering out, it leapt at my cheek, screaming as the heat met my skin with what had to be a clear and directed intent.

  I stumbled, clawing at the growing blaze with a terrified scream. Someone was yelling, but I couldn’t make it out past my own terror.I didn’t even realize I was on the ground when two pairs of hands came to my aid, tearing the already frayed robe off of me and throwing it to the side and into a conflagration.

  I was ready to curse myself for not taking it off on my own, but there were more important things at hand.

  Delry and Sam weren’t looking at me when I stood, staring over my now burnt shoulder in what could only be abject terror. I could do nothing but join them when I turned to the source of their fear.

  The figure standing on the other end of the road we had just come from bore no marks on his tanned flesh, a man with a neatly trimmed black beard and clean features I could only attribute to nobility. He was almost as surprised to see us as we were to see him. His eyes flickered between us and something just beyond the home he had stumbled away from. Mercifully, he was alone.

  Unfortunately, I knew it didn’t matter.

  He wore an ornate silver chestplate that left his arms exposed to the open air, blackened thorns emblazoned in thrice repeating patterns across the metal. He raised a solitary brow in our direction.

  It was one of them.

  A spellwhisper.