Chapter 34 – Before the fall
Ash fell like snow.
Not in great clouds, not in choking storms—just a quiet, steady drift that caught the dying light and turned it silver. It clung to rooftops, to scorched grass, to the broken weapons left leaning against the blackstone walls. The air held no wind, no birdsong—only the soft scrape of shovels and the rustle of cloth as villagers gathered what was left of the shattered mistspawn.
Angela moved among them, silent and small. Her hands were clean, untouched by ash, but her eyes saw too much. She paused by a twisted heap of blackened bone and mist-burnt skin. Where its face had once been, there was only a hollow — and something in her stomach twisted.
"They shouldn't still feel wrong," she whispered to no one.
But they did.
Her fingers closed around the pendant at her throat. Not prayer—never that—but memory of when the elf had saved her.
This wasn't over.
Near the gate, Kaela sat on a stone bench, the curve of her spine sharp in the fading light. Her daggers rested across her lap, one blade already gleaming, the other still streaked with something that had once been alive. She ran the whetstone across it in slow, rhythmic pulls—shhk, shhk—her eyes never straying from the edge.
Beneath her wrappings at her waist, the mark pulsed faintly—too dim to glow, but still there. A brand that no water or wind could erase.
She'd wrapped it tightly, covered it well. But she could feel it burning still. Watching still.
A child lingered near the gate—a boy, no older than ten. Dirt smeared across his cheeks, bare feet pressed into scorched earth. He said nothing, just stared. Kaela didn't look at him, but she let her voice carry soft and low.