The villagers cried, their sighs carrying across the fog-obscured air. The battlefield beyond the castle walls was littered with corpses, broken bodies supported by grieving loved ones. Smoke clung, wisping like shrouds over the blood-soaked earth.
Knight Rio stumbled down the destroyed streets, armor jangling with every step. His gasps were hoarse, eyes bulging in hopeless desire as he cried out for his family. He burst into the door of his small stone house, and there was nothing. Desperation twisted at his stomach. He staggered out down the muddy streets, crying their names, struggling through the pain and desolate. And he stood still.
His sister and mother were crouched against a wall of stone, throats ripped open, faces contorted into twisted masks of terror. They had bites on them, brutal signatures of the winged terrors they had battled. His knees gave way, and he collapsed beside them, a scream torn from his throat, raw and shattered.
Gabriel watched from the castle steps. He had seen so much death, but this—a soldier finding his family shattered by the chaos—tugged at a place within him he had tried to close off. He crossed the courtyard, blood drying on his hands, and knelt beside Rio.
"Rio." Gabriel whispered, placing a hand on the knight's trembling shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
Rio's eyes looked at him, watery and empty, a man broken beyond repair. He clung to his mother's cold hand, trembling. "Why. why did it have to end like this?"
Gabriel had no answer. He could only remain, kneeling beside the ruined knight, allowing the desolation to sweep over both of them.
Neah, tear-stained face and sooted, came upon King Marcus on the castle stairs. She enfolded him in her arms, her face burying itself in the wide expanse of his chest. His bracing arms wrapped her in a tight grasp, as if to stop the worst so that the abominable dream would disappear.
Zoe, her goggles still warm with the soft glow of combat, sat on the iron walls of her workshop. She gritted her tools, her calloused hands trembling. Anna, up on the balcony, held her family close, praying softly for the dead. Carl hugged his brother among the living, holding him tight, bone-crushing.
Later, when the flames in the castle had been reduced to cinders and sounds of combat had ceased, Neah and King Marcus found Zoe's workshop. She crouched over her workbench, sparks flying from her fingers as she labored to repair the broken parts of her inventions. Marcus placed a wide hand upon her shoulder.
"We require something more powerful," he growled, his voice a thunder. "A cannon with cutting-edge technology, something that can rip apart whatever Sally fires next."
Zoe pushed her goggles up, showing bloodshot eyes. She turned to regard him, quiet for an instant, before nodding rigidly. "I'll build you one that'll rip the sky in two."
Gabriel stepped forward, Rio behind him, his eyes empty but his gait more even. He cleared his throat. "King Marcus," he spoke to Rio, "would it be permissible if Rio remained in the castle for the time being?"
Marcus, his eyes tired but his voice still commanding, looked at the shattered knight. "You may remain," he told him, his eyes blazing, "but there will be rules. This is no sanctuary for the lost."
Rio bowed, his lips opening in a whispered, "Thank you."
As Marcus stepped back, Neah took Gabriel's hand. Her fingers were warm, a jarring contrast to the cold stone beneath their feet. She pulled him toward her, her green eyes scanning his face. "You all right?" she whispered, her voice shaking.
Gabriel's jaw tightened. He wanted to say yes, to reassure her, but the weight of their losses, the faces of the fallen, clung to him like chains. "I'm." he hesitated, his eyes drifting to the shattered remains of the battlefield. "I don't know."
Neah's grip tightened. "We can't let this break us," she said, her voice fierce. "We have to fight. For them. For everyone."
He gazed at her, her cheek smeared with ash, her hair messy and spattered with blood. She had fought him, bled with him. He was giving her that kind of respect. He jerked a nod, the words stuck in his throat. "For them."
Down the street, Anna's house had been converted into a makeshift hospital, the screams of the dying and the cries of the widowed ringing down its cramped corridors. The knights carried in corpse after corpse, their faces set. She walked among the injured, her hands aglow with a soft, otherworldly light as she attempted to save the dying from the edge. She managed to save a few of them, but lost many others to her, their souls bursting out into the night.
Outside, the villagers wept, their wails echoing through the night. Candles burned on every doorstep, their light dancing in the cold wind.
Margo drifted, her limbs loose in the icy floodwaters. Shadows danced around her, hissing, their breaths the sound of dry leaves. They snarled and spat, circling around her like sharks, their noses twitching.
"She smells. different," one of them growled. "Like the other side. like Earth."
His leader, a hulking thin man with ember-bright eyes, scooped up, thin, bony fingers closing around Margo's wrist. He pulled her out of the water with surprising gentleness, his ember-bright eyes surveying her pale, bloodstained face.
"Lead her before the Queen," he gasped. "She will determine what to do with this. intruder."
They pulled her onto the beach, where a huge tent, black as night and lined with glimmering green, loomed over the quagmire. They laid her on a heap of intertwined leaves, and the leader sat on her, putting a glowing, clawed hand on her breast.
"Wake," he bellowed, his voice echoing in the dark. "Breathe."
Margo's eyes flew open. She gasped, her lungs convulsing with the acrid air, eyes unfocused. She recoiled, scrambling backward as her eyes came to rest on the creature standing before her—a long, gaunt form with skin like moss fresh from the ground, its eyes obsidian polished.
"Don't be afraid," the being said, its voice gentler now. "I am Queen Hanna, queen of the Samana."
Margo's heart pounded, gasping in short shallow breaths. "W-what. what are you?"
Hanna's lips rose into a slight, close to sad smile. "A friend, if you wish to be. Sleep now. You have much to learn. The world is black, and if you wish to live, you must learn to fight."
The sun rose early this morning, burning off the thick fog that surrounded the village, casting great shadows to dance down the cobblestone streets. The air was thick with the commotion of crying, a lament of grief that filled the valleys. Smoke loomed over the burned-out houses, a harsh reminder of war that had ravaged their lives.
Rio hovered over the graves, his grime-smudged, tear-stained face a grubby, puffy mess. His sister's ruined locket clutched in his fist, the metal biting hard into his palm. His own eyes red and puffy, gazing unrecognizably at the line of recently opened graves being chopped into the unforgiving earth. Each thud of the shovels echoed like a shiv driven deeper in his heart.
Anna stood there, pale face, blank eyes. She had fought through all night in her small, messy house, trying to mend the dying and the broken. But she was finite, and the dead just kept coming, pouring through her hands like water. And as the villagers came, their faces stern with sorrow and anger, rumblings began to rise in the crowd.
"She could have saved them," a voice whispered, its tone slicing through the morning fog.
"It is her fault," another one spat, their eyes on Anna's shaking figure.
A giant figure in a tunic covered in blood pushed forward, fists tightened. "You. you killed them! You killed my brother!" he growled, pushing Anna out of the way. She lost her footing, her heel sliding into the gap between the loose stones that padded the ground. A second man, his face contorted in pain, swung back his arm, his fist connecting with her jaw. Bone struck bone, the sound ringing out across the cemetery.
Anna's head jerked back, her eyes flashing white. She stumbled, grasping the low stone wall to support herself. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, her body trembling under the weight of their accusations.
"Stop!" Carl's shout broke through the tumult as he fought his way through the throng. His eyes flared with anger, his hands shaking as he thrust the men aside. "Lost your minds, all of you?! She did! She attempted to save them!"
The mob came to a halt, their rage withering in the face of Carl's commanding presence. Zoe stood beside him, her staring glasses shining in the pre-dawn. She took Anna's arm, holding it firmly but tenderly, and led her out of the way of the mob. The gossip continued, the glances would not deter, but the fists had stopped, and Anna was permitted to be led from the graveside, her body still shaking.
Zoe yanked her back into the dark alley behind her workshop and pushed her against the chill of stone. Anna's chest heaved and fell in ragged, shallow breaths.
"I. I couldn't save them," Anna whispered, her voice breaking. "This is all my fault."
Zoe gripped her shoulders and shook her hard. "No," she said, her tone short. "You did the best you could. You saved as many as you could. Don't let them make you feel otherwise."
Tears rolled down Anna's face, merging with the filth and blood streaked across her cheeks. She collapsed to the ground, scratching at her own arms as if attempting to rip away the guilt that adhered to her like a second skin.