The battlefield beckoned behind her, but she refused to look. Alethna did not want to see the golden glow given off by her dead friends as the rituals returned them to the Golden Wall. She did not want to be in the presence of the Protector. The burning hatred she felt had no place near the sacred. The rituals needed to be pure of malice, and the fallen of her people deserved to make the transition as peacefully as possible, especially given the violence of their end. Never in her experience had so many died in one single event. She had never heard of a full-scale battle within her realm. It was a very bad sign. 

Alethna desperately wanted to know how their enemies had summoned a Consumer into their realm. It should have been impossible. The way it controlled the soldiers and gave them their deadly Outer Magic was unprecedented. 

The earth had so been scorched and scarred by the fight that Alethna felt it would never heal. Around the edges of the black ground, the trees, grass, bushes and flowers whispered a soft lament that could only be heard with intense concentration. Alethna listened to it briefly but it only made her weep. It was like the entire realm had been shocked, traumatized and had now lost its ignorance and innocence. Unthinkable amounts of blood had poisoned formerly fertile ground, possibly forever. It was no longer an impossible thing to be subjected to sudden, brutal violence. That hard-earned knowledge would always be a source of deep regret for Alethna, and for the first time in her life she knew real hatred. 

“What are they doing?”

It was the human, the one who had saved her, and one of the only two survivors from the Axis Realm. He looked over her shoulder towards the distant glow.

“They are returning to the wall, their first home.”

“I guess that doesn’t sound so bad.” The scarred man said. 

She restrained her angry outburst. How could he not see the implications? Like that they would not be strong enough to repel another attack? Or that cultivating the realm would be difficult with so many gone? And that it was going to be very hard to maintain the Pattern when the Spring Court’s time arrived which put all the realms at risk?

“I don’t know what happens to my friends.” Razor said. 

Suddenly Alethna understood what he was saying and she regretted her anger. The fate of her people was known, unlike his. 

The man sighed heavily and made his way towards the only other human survivor. She was a small woman, but empowered by her three sigils she had fought with incredible ferocity. She had been silent ever since the battle. Now she sat with her arms around her knees beneath the deep green canopy of a large tree and was so still that it seemed like she had been carved into the roots. Empty eyes stared out over a vista of meadows, forests, cliffs and rivers, and did not even flicker in acknowledgement as Razor approached. 

Alethna followed the woman’s gaze out over her homeland. Nothing would be the same again for a long time.