“How is that relevant?” asked Zech, who was now sitting on his backside like a stunned child.

“First, we’ll search the bodies of our attackers to see if there’s anything useful. Then we’ll head for the western wall and cross over it into the wilderness.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Or rather, you guys will. I’ll go back into town and use this to hide from sight. I don’t know if it’ll be able to hide me from the demon, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Why would you want to go back there?”

“To look for Alistar. He told us he’d meet us at the parade grounds, so something must have happened to hold him up. If he’s still safe, he’ll definitely head there after. You know how he is when it comes to the promises he makes.”

“What about my father?” asked Anice, who was just tuning into the conversation at the mention of her cousin. “I can’t just leave him here.”

“I can’t leave Lily either,” said Jaden, his voice resolute. “You guys go. I’ll stay here with her.”

“Do you think she’d want that?” said Corrie, appearing pained by his own words. “As far as anyone else knows, an unknown group took advantage of the demon’s attack to do this. They’ll be found and buried in the traditional way.”

“How can you know that for sure?” snapped the bigger boy, a young man in every right. “I can’t just leave her here on the side of the road like some injured animal. I can’t…”

“Even if they did this to him, Lord Caedmon’s still the king’s son. They’ll definitely look into the matter, and when they do it’ll come to light that he was last seen bringing people to his estate along with Bishop Rendel. At most, the bishop will send people here to clean up the bodies of the men he sent and to make things look like everyone here died without a fight.”

Whether her friend truly believed in his own words or not, Anice wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she didn’t want to leave her father’s side and that she fully understood Jaden’s reluctance to leave Lily’s body behind.

Helen was the first to move, walking over to the distant corpses to retrieve the bow of the man that had killed Stason and Mr. Albeck along with a quiver that was nearly full of arrows. Zech hurried after her and the two returned a few minutes later with two swords, a dagger, and two half-staves that hadn’t seen any use in the recent fight due to the fact that Corrie had killed their wielders before they could cast any spells. Along with the weapons were four enchanted necklaces that were likely what had enabled their attackers to gain partial invisibility, though Corrie tossed them aside after sensing magic imprints on each of them.

“So they don’t track us,” he explained when given a questioning look by Zech. “We need to be as careful as possible.” As he spoke, he strapped on the secondary belt and then secured his looted dagger in place so that it sat parallel to his enchanted weapon on the opposing hip.

Anice was pulled from her father’s body by one of her friends, though she was too distracted and disconcerted for it to register in her mind who it was that was ushering her away. Her eyes didn’t leave the ground as she followed after the feet in front of her, not a single thought running through her mind as she continued to move in a mechanical manner.

She didn’t look up until quite a while later, surprised to find that they had followed a countryside path all the way to the western walls of the county. Off in the distance, hundreds of towering smoke plumes hovered in the air above Mayhaven, some reaching high enough to tickle the underbellies of several lower-riding clouds that floated through the clear summer’s sky.

Corrie hadn’t accompanied them for the disjointed journey, the short, sharp-eyed boy having kept to his word and gone off to search for Alistar within the crumbling city. It eventually dawned on Anice that the chaotic sounds of crushed stone and collapsing buildings had ceased, the only noise in her ears that of the insects and wildlife beyond the stone wall that she and her friends were leaning against.

At this point, she began to pray in her heart that Alistar had survived the catastrophe in town. Hopefully, Corrie would return any minute with her cousin in tow, both healthy and safe from all harm.

You better be okay, she thought desperately, anxiety competing with depression as Alistar's confident, caring image appeared before her mind’s eye. You’re all I have left.

Corrie returned about an hour later, his face more affected than it had been at any of the day’s previous junctures.

“He wasn’t there, then?” asked Zech, the others all lost in what seemed like a permanent daze.

Corrie’s gaze found the ground at Zech’s feet, seemingly unable to meet his friend’s eyes.

“He was there.” A single tear slipped down the left side of his face before he went on in a quieter voice, “He…the demon killed him.”

His words had a similar impact on everyone present, though they hit Anice far harder than any of her friends with perhaps the exception of Lessa.

Alistar was dead?

Anice hadn’t thought that she could feel any more distraught, but evidently the abyss of despair was a bottomless pit and there was no escaping its depths now that she had already fallen into it. Suddenly she found herself thinking of the first time that she had brought Alistar to The Spot where she and her friends liked to gather along the Greyline, of the sadness in his eyes as he dealt with news of his mother’s death, and of the smile he’d eventually shown after their awkward heart-to-heart.

You can call me Alie.

Like a keg tap that was suddenly turned, her tears began to fall freely once more.

Elsewhere in the group, Jaden finally looked up, a small amount of awareness returning to his deep-set brown eyes as he cast a longing glance at the city and then in the direction of Caedmon’s estate. “Are you sure?”

Corrie wiped at his face and took a deep breath, glancing down at the weathered dagger at his waist. He nodded, turning his back to the others and unfurling a rope that he’d picked up at some point since he had broken away from the group. Throwing it over the wall so that the looped end caught hold of one of the slimmer merlons at the top of the barrier, he gave it a rough tug so that the fibre became taut.

“We need to go.”

Jaden was the first to scale the wall, eyes blank and his expression that of a lifeless doll. His moves were methodical as he wormed his way up the rope, which he soon hoisted upwards to haul a puffy-eyed, traumatized Emely over the stone ledge as she held onto the rope with all her strength. He went on to lift each of the other girls up, having a more difficult time with Lessa and Anice as they hardly had it in them to muster even a sliver of strength.

This can’t be real. It can’t be!

Anice’s mind was a mess of memories, each of them sending piercing pains through her heart. The joy in Alistar’s face on the day that the boys had taught him how to swim, the wonder in his eyes the first time that he’d tasted sweets, the awe that he’d shown when she had brought him to the estate’s library a short while after they had met. All of the times that he had played with her when she knew deep down that he’d wanted nothing more than to continue on with his studies. The nights that he’d exasperatedly allowed her to sleep in his bed, the warmth of his body at her side, the sadness that slipped onto his face whenever he fell asleep and was forced to suffer through whatever night terrors happened to torment him on a given night.

Before Anice knew it, she was stumbling through the dense underbrush along a path that Zech was clearing with his stolen sword, the rest of the group walking in silence as they digested the horrors of the day.

If only she had listened to her heart and rushed out of the manor house earlier that morning to stop Alistar from going wherever it was that he often visited, then he might still be alive. She had known that he and Lessa had ridden out to a discreet area of the grounds to make love, a realization that came with the awkward, stumbling steps of her friend as she had made her way towards the eastern gate of the property. At that time, she’d wanted nothing more than to run downstairs and give Alistar the beating that she felt he deserved, to reprimand him for ignoring her all these months while fawning over her friend instead. To tell him to stay home with her, so that they might attend the delegation’s parade in one another’s company. In the end, she had returned to her room with tears in her eyes, not wanting to further exacerbate the depression that she knew he had been feeling in the lead up to Lessa’s eventual departure.

Thoughts of Alistar soon gave way to the sound of her father’s dying words. Although he hadn’t been around much in recent years, she had never once thought that he didn’t love her. She had grumbled and moped and cursed him for his constant absences, but that was only because she missed his affection and yearned for his company. In the end, Caedmon had died protecting her and her friends, as had the three men that had been uncles to her in all but name.

She cried for almost an entire hour until her tears finally ran dry, her face flushed and inflamed while her eyes felt as if they had been beaten raw by a tenderizing hammer. It was around this time that Emely sudden choked out words of warning, the others subconsciously paying heed to her wariness.

“S—stop!” said the smaller girl in a half cry, stooping to pick up a little mouse that had just scurried free from a pile of leaves while letting loose a few quiet squeaks. Picking it up, she said, “T—there’s a big snake up ahead. There”—she pointed to a large pile of detritus about twenty paces away—“under those leaves.”

Zech didn’t ask her how she knew, instead altering their path to circumnavigate the general area that she had just warned them of. Emely didn’t let go of the mouse, instead cradling it in her arms as if it were a close confidant that could share in her current sorrows.

About fifteen minutes later, the sound of snapping branches drew their attention to a distant thicket that obscured a powerful aura from their sights.

Muddled though her mind was, Anice was immediately able to tell that the source of the life signal was human. Suppressing a shiver, she couldn’t help but think of the same sensation that she felt whenever she perceived Sword Master Tramon, a sharp aura that, while not overly conspicuous, gave her the feeling that a hidden razor was resting against the nape of her neck. Whoever this person was, she had a premonition that they were very powerful.

Zech and Jaden stood at the front of the group and brandished their swords, each adopting their preferred defensive stances of Crown Style swordsmanship. Helen knocked an arrow and aimed at the shuddering thicket, which was set to reveal the oncoming individual at any moment.

Having lost what little faith she had in Lord Lucian, Anice prayed to unknown Gods that the approaching person didn’t have a mind for murder, for she had lost enough of her loved ones today and didn’t think that she could handle the sight of seeing more of her friends die.