The smell of blood. That was the first thing. The most notable thing. A miasma so thick and cloying Shaeyas could taste it on her tongue.

The cabin was partially draped in darkness. Orange firelight throbbed and pulsed behind the small vent in the stove, making one half of the cabin quiver with shadows. Shadows of the table. Shadows of the figures who sat huddled together with their backs to the wall--figures Shaeyas had to stare at for too long before realizing it was Tavlen, hugging Adalen and holding her face against her chest. Adalen was shaking, sobbing.

Shaeyas' gaze refused to settle on this image. Her mind refused to believe. She refused to believe.

Distantly, she felt Arlen drop down off of her back, boots thumping on the floorboards behind her. Almost as distant was the realization she was staring at something. Not at the table, but at the thing that was on top of the table. A linen sheet had been laid over it, but the outline was hard to mistake. It was Venkas' length, his build. She could see the point of his nose protruding upward underneath the cloth. Her gaze traveled down the length of the covered object, the thing that looked like her husband. Blots of red marred the lower half of the sheet, concentrating in the lower left corner. Blood stained the tabletop there, as well as the leg of the table, spreading outward from the leg on the floor. Smears on the floorboards where some attempt had been made to clean up the mess. But there was too much of it. It had sunk into the wood of the floor itself, and through it. There was no doubt in Shaeyas' mind that this smell, this stench, would never go away, a fixture as permanent as the stains themselves. This place had been altered forever. Corrupted. This was no longer a home. It was a den of death. And there was no going back from that.

"Shaeyas."

It was Tavlen, looking up at her, her face drawn and ghost-like in the fluctuating light from the stove. There was a sharp clip to the way she said her name. A warning.

Ignoring her, Shaeyas approached the thick oak table, each tentative step making the floorboards creak ominously. She hooked a trembling thumb under the edge of the sheet, next to Venkas' face, gripped it in her fist, and drew it back.

His eyelids were closed. And Shaeyas was thankful for that. She didn't need to witness those glassy, milky eyes of the dead, not in the sockets of her beloved. The rigid pallor of his face was hard enough to bear. The stillness of it. His glossy skin flickered orange from the firelight, his nose cutting a sharp, wavering shadow down the length of his neck and chest, like an unsteady sword. Shaeyas continued to pull back the sheet. And had to hold back a gasp--or was it a scream?

It wasn't just the blood, the sheer amount of it, some of it still drying, glinting in the light. It was his leg. Or rather, the lack thereof. Severed, just above the knee. The bloody stump was wrapped tight with makeshift bandages, lengths of torn cloth tied neatly and efficiently.

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"I did everything I could," Tavlen said, still sitting behind Shaeyas, against the wall. "I managed to cauterize the wound, stop the bleeding more or less. He passed out from the pain. But the infection..."

She didn't need to say the rest. Shaeyas said for her. "It was already too late. You did everything you could."

Her gaze drifted, traveling upward, back toward the face of the man she loved. Some part of her kept expecting something to happen. For those eyelashes to twitch. For Venkas to grimace with discomfort at the hardness of the table on his back. He'd always been picky about where he slept.

But he wasn't sleeping. It was a fact she couldn't quite hammer home in her mind. None of it seemed real. Maybe that's why she couldn't cry. Wouldn't cry.

It wasn't real. And yet, she couldn't deny it.

"Who did this?" Shaeyas said, so softly she almost couldn't hear her own voice.

"Didn't Arlen tell you?" Tavlen said.

"No," Shaeyas said, turning to look down at Tavlen, realizing her grandmother had misunderstood her. There was more to this. More than just a band of roving goblins in the backwoods. And they both knew it. There was no reason for them to be this far out, in the middle of the Sloughbacks, an entire sea away from the Bloodweald.

What's more, Shaeyas could see it on her grandmother's face--not just the fact that she knew, but that there was a deep, overwhelming guilt associated with that knowledge. Correctly or not, Tavlen blamed this entire situation on herself.

The question was, why?

Shaeyas spoke again, louder this time. "Who did this?"

Tavlen blinked, looking up at her, her eyes wide and gleaming with tears. Her mouth worked, like there were words struggling to escape just behind her lips.

"I'm so sorry," she said, finally. "I--"

"Don't be sorry," Shaeyas said. Angry. Impatient. Losing control. If she ever had it, since she first heard the news. "Just...tell me."

Tavlen swallowed, and her mouth made a thin line. For a long time, she only stared back, returning Shaeyas' hard gaze. There was a crackle in the stove, and a thud as one of the charred logs settled.

Tavlen sighed. It was the kind of sigh that made her seem old to Shaeyas, for the very first time. It was as if some reservoir of energy had been pierced, and it was leaking out, leaving her deflated. As if all the long years were finally catching up with her, all at once.

"What's wrong with him?" Arlen said, next to Shaeyas. "Is he sleeping?"

He was right up next to the table, leaning over the lip of the tabletop. He reached over and nudged Venkas' arm. "Hey, Venkas. C'mon, wake up."

This will be it. This will be the thing that breaks me. I'll burst into tears. The numbness will break, and the grief will wash over me.

It didn't happen. It was still all so strange, like it was happening to someone else. And yet, the anger continued to build. The fury. There was no outlet for it. No avenue for release.

There was no escape. She was trapped here. A prisoner in this moment. This bizarre, terrible reality she didn't want to accept.

"It's a long story," Tavlen said, finally answering her question, petting the back of Adalen's head with one hand, her face still buried in her grandmother's shoulder. "And there's no time to tell it. There's much to be done. We have a long night ahead of us."