The morning carries it — thick, bitter, and lingering — curling from blackened rooftops and through the tangled branches that fringe the village. Ash settles in the gutters and clings to the thatch, dulling the gold of the autumn light. The world feels still, too still, as though the village itself were holding its breath after screaming all night.
When you step outside, the air is damp and cold, the kind that seeps through fabric and into bone. The scent of burned wood clings to everything — to your clothes, to your hair, to the earth itself. Beneath it lingers something coppery, faint but impossible to ignore.
Children carry buckets from the well, faces pinched pale, their eyes averted from the square. The men repair fences that weren’t broken. Women hang cloths that will never come clean. No one looks at the blackened stake at the village’s heart, but everyone feels its presence.
From here, you can still see it — the pyre’s remains standing stark and wrong against the dull morning light.
Somewhere above, a raven cries once, sharp and cold, before vanishing into the smoke-hazed sky.
Behind you, the door creaks open.
“Child,” Laemir's voice carries the weight of sleepless hours “don’t wander far. They’re saying riders came through the pass before dawn.”
You glance back at her. Her hair is unbound, her shawl half-slipped from one shoulder, but her eyes are steady. There’s fear in them, yes — but something else, too. Anticipation.
She nods once. “The Queen’s retinue, they say. And her Right Hand rides with her.”
The words fall like stones into water, and for a moment, all you can hear is the dull echo of your own heartbeat. The Queen. Here.
The last time she left the capital, it was to watch an execution.
You look past Laemir, toward the grey horizon. Smoke curls along the ridge like a waiting storm.
“She wouldn’t come to Ashwood,” you murmur.
Laemir doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to.
You pull your cloak tight and step out into the cold, damp street. The cobblestones are streaked dark from rain that fell in the night, washing little away. The village hums faintly — hammers striking, whispers threading through the air. Somewhere, a bell tolls from the chapel tower, its sound hollow and slow.
Ashwood lives, but only barely.
