15^th Illumis, 460 AG, 19:49PM, Heodal Kingdom

Xyron’s throat filled with smoke and dirt as he staggered past the damaged doors of the church. The air outside was almost like a furnace, bright even though the setting sun barely pressed through the black layer of clouds rising over the village. In the confusion, he nearly lost track of his little brother and Kai, but his mother’s back was a guide, still and covered by her silver hair, as she swept the yard with a soldier’s vigilance.

Behind him, children whimpered and sobbed in a single mass, led by Luzia’s clear, calm voice and hands that never stopped moving. She counted them every few seconds, always starting from the smallest, and called out to any who were starting to fall behind, never missing a name. For a few moments, Xyron’s lungs filled only with the simple will of survival, and the idea that they might actually reach the gates was less like a lie.

Then, a crack rang through the village, sharp and somehow heavy, and the church behind them convulsed as a flaming boulder the size of a small building shattered the roof above the altar. The blast felt like a slap from the hand of a god, sending a tremor through the ground at his feet. Bits of roof and what could have been bone dust scattered through the air. Xyron saw the boulder burning through the ceiling as if the church were made of simple vines, its trails of flame coming toward where the children had gathered.

Kai saw it too, his voice cracking as soon as he spoke.

“Down!” As if her words themselves had to run from the danger. Katyl acted before anyone else, her body slicing the distance between the children and the falling flames and stones in a straight line. For a second, Xyron could almost believe her feet never touched the ground. Wind knotted itself around her, surrounding her body and sending gusts of cold air in every direction. She flung herself into the mass of orphans, shoving two of the smaller kids to the ground just as the boulder’s flaming debris rained over them.

But before she could finish her movement, another figure walked into the boulder’s shadow: Luzia. She was slim and steady, arms wide as if to hug the blast itself. There was no scream, no showy invocation. Just a single, whip-crack syllable, “Shield!” And then, a dome of golden shine appeared out from her chest, its surface alive with dancing runes and other tiny shapes Xyron couldn’t decipher.

The impact was immediate, so loud it eliminated every other sound. Xyron felt it, not only in his ears but in his whole body. The world went quiet for a split second, and then he was flat on his back, staring at the sky above him. He tasted dirt, maybe glass, in his teeth. A few heartbeats later, sound returned- the hiss of cooling stone, the distant wet cries of someone emptying their stomach, the panicked pain of a child whose arm bent at a wrong angle.

That child was Aolyne.

Xyron scrambled across the front yard of the church, ignoring all the debris and hot ash that seemed to melt the skin at his knees and palms, and found Katyl kneeling in the wreckage. She clutched Aolyne close with a grip just close enough to be crushing, but not with bad intention. Aolyne’s face was gray and slick with tears, his mouth open in a wordless, sucking motion. His left forearm had swelled up and twisted sideways at the wrist.

Katyl tried to comfort, but comfort was not her specialty. She looked at Xyron and then at Luzia, who had already crossed the blast radius. Luzia’s eyes were bright but unfocused, her cracked lips pulled together as she knelt over Aolyne and peeled his fingers away from the wound.

“Hold him steady,” Luzia said, her voice one tone above normal. She placed her hands on either side of Aolyne’s arm and closed her eyes. Xyron and Katyl did as they were told, bracing the little boy against the trembling that ran through both of them. The heat from Luzia’s hands was almost painful; it stung, and then stung harder, and then there was a slow numbness spreading up Aolyne’s arm.

“High Heal.”

That’s what the priests called it, but Xyron had never seen it up close. It wasn’t showy, akin to wind magic or fire magic. There was no light, no sound, just the way blood rose to Luzia’s skin as though pulled there by something hungry. Her nose started to bleed, first a single drop, then a red streak down to her lips. Aolyne’s breathing slowed, and the swelling in his arm shuddered, then shrank by a little bit. Luzia’s hands were shaking but never let go.

“It’s going to hurt. Bite down.” Luzia whispered to Aolyne, who obeyed instantly, clamping his teeth on a torn sleeve. The next few moments were silent but for the low, wet sound of the bone sliding back into place. Xyron didn’t realize he was crying until the blur on his eyes made it hard to see.

When Luzia finally pulled her hands back, her face was ashen and wet with sweat. She sagged to the side and spit a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

Katyl gave her a single nod, the only thank you she could give in the heat of things. She pressed Aolyne’s head into her shoulder, murmuring.

“You did so well, honey. It’s over. Look, see? You’re whole.”

Xyron believed it because he had to. The arm was still the wrong color, but it was straight, and Aolyne’s breath no longer rattled like a dying creature thing. He helped Katyl sling the arm in a makeshift bandage. When Xyron glanced at Luzia again, she was wiping her nose on the hem of her dress and blinking away the dizziness. Kai hovered at the perimeter, sword half out of its sheath, eyes examining the sky for the next incoming boulder.

“Are we moving?” Kai’s voice shook, and for once it sounded like a boy’s, not a hunter’s.

Katyl took the cue. She stood, lifted Aolyne in one arm, and marched to where two of the Argo soldiers’ bodies had fallen. With her free hand, she drew two swords from the mud, still warm from the last kill. She tossed one to Kai, who fumbled but managed to catch it by the grip. She held the other out to Xyron.

Xyron stared at it for a second. He’d held real, large swords before, but only on the training field, never outside of games or drills. This one appeared heavier, the blade dark and a little tacky with someone else’s blood. His mouth was dry, but he grabbed it by the hilt, and when he did, his mother locked eyes with him.

“You’re not fighters.” She said, and her speech wasn’t angry, just flat and direct. “You’ve hunted, yes. Some horned rabbits, a wolf, once, with me right behind. That is not the same. These men…” She jerked her chin at the corpses. “They are not animals. They think, they plan, they feel nothing for you. If you freeze, they will cut you apart. If you run, they will chase. Do you understand?”

Xyron nodded. He felt the honesty in her words, impossible to deny.