"Prove yourself and we shall speak again."

Those words haunted Lord Mecan Feradnor's every waking moment since the High Angel had destroyed Zarmand. The missing fingers on his left hand, all of which were burned right down to the knuckle, constantly reminded him of it.

"I did not intend for your survival."

That rattled around his mind, too. When she had uttered it, he was so certain that she meant to kill him then and there. With the ease she had laid waste to one of the world's greatest cities, along with well more than a million people, what would have been one more life? He burst out laughing and crying immediately after she had spared him and he continued to do so whenever he thought of it. Perhaps no man in Zarmand that day was as responsible for the calamity as he, and yet he lived.

He wandered for days afterwards, uncertain of where to go or what to do. It was the first time in his entire life he'd been without assistants to look after his needs. His robes had so quickly dirtied and his appearance became marred by the elements and injuries that he was in no danger of being identified. At one stop in some nameless farming town, he opted to have the long hair on the sides of his otherwise bald head shaved off, but let his grey beard continue to grow in.

With a few coins lent to him by a generous old woman in that town, he bought a spot on a wagon to Rafnious, where his family estate was located on the northern edge of the city. His wife, Eltysa, two sons, and two daughters looked after the estate while he was down in the capital, a fact for which he was now thankful. He had nearly sent for them to be with him, but that would have meant their certain deaths.

"What 'appened to your hand there, sir?" a gruff old man who was his traveling companion asked him. "If ya don't mind my askin'."

"Oh this?" Feradnor laughed as he waved his maimed left hand. "Got attacked. Quite the brigand. When he attacked my camp, his axe caught on fire, if you can believe that. Came down and cut them all clean off. I'm just happy to be alive."

"At least it was clean," the old man scoffed and scratched at his beard. "Makes me think of Zarmand. Whole thing just wiped off the map in one go like that. Craziest thing that's ever 'appened."

"Yeah," Feradnor mumbled and twitched, remembering the burned strip of that poor woman floating on top of him in the Vigrahn River. "You, um, didn't lose anyone there, did you?"

The old man shrugged.

"I think some cousins, probably. 'adn't talked to 'em in some time. My sons are up in Rafnious and my grandsons are with the army," he coughed. "No idea what's 'appened to 'em, my grandsons that is, but my sons are fine, I'm sure. None of 'em ever went down to Zarmand that much. 'ope this war ends soon, though. It's only a matter of time before we all get eaten up."

"That sounds right to me," Feradnor nodded along, glancing at his left hand. He wiggled his thumb, still struck by the sight of it standing alone without its brother fingers. He thought of the High Angel's command as he did. "I think that's how we'll prove ourselves..."

"What's that?" the old man asked, coughing.

"Ending the war. We all need to do our part because you're right. If it keeps going, it'll be the end of us all," Feradnor said with a pained laugh.

The old man smirked and rolled his eyes.

"It'll take a damn smarter man than me to figure out 'ow to put that drink back in the bottle. Pretty damn sure the bottle's broken and tossed in the river," he chuckled. "Two brothers who 'ate each other and a bunch of angels who 'ate each other even more. Not lookin' like it'll be done in my lifetime."

Feradnor nodded in agreement and then turned to looking out the wagon window at the greying autumn skies above the flat farmlands that stretched for miles north of the ruins of Zarmand.

His journey with the old man was a strange one. Not once did either inquire about the other's name. Feradnor had heard that it was a wise tactic among travelers to avoid creating any kind of trail. One could never be too careful when journeying with strangers. What the loyalties were of the people he met remained a mystery to him. Few seemed willing to divulge them even though it was firmly, at least nominally, Duronaht's territory.

During the brief period when Feradnor led the people of Zarmand to follow Nethron, much of the east central portions of the Methrangian Empire had drifted to the Aura Liberator as well. Forynda put a stop to that all so quickly with the obliteration of Zarmand and Nethron himself. Few understood the High Angel's message as clearly as he did. Again and again, he saw that light, the blazing light of destruction cutting through the old city, turning people to dust and the dust into nothingness.

On his last night before arriving in Rafnious, he dreamed about the woman's face that had laid across his own while he bobbed up and down in the water, the only survivor in all of Zarmand. Her lifeless and hollow eyes, almost translucent with how much had been burned away, pierced deep. They were as knives, slashing and tearing at his brain. A dull pulse stopped it all. Her eyes moved, life returned to them again. Her mouth opened, revealing only the shimmering water behind it.

"How? How didn't you know this would happen?" she asked in an ethereal voice, dripping in equal parts anger and incredulity. Her eyes darkened and flashed, her mouth growing twisted and horrific, mangled teeth and a shredded tongue revealing themselves. "HOW?!"

He jolted awake in the carriage, discovering that his traveling companion had already departed.

"Rafnious. We're here, sir," the wagon driver said, knocking on the side. "Get on out. I've got another run to start."

"Much obliged," Feradnor mumbled, tossing the awkward and disheveled wagon driver a five-piece coin. "Safe journeys."

It'd been the better part of nine months since he'd even seen the splendors of little Rafnious, the City of the Three Angels by some grandiose tellings. Sitting on a terraced series of hills and surrounded on three sides by the deep Lake Gelzon, Rafnious had been the joint project of Vorlan, Cyrona, and Omonrel some impossibly long time before, far predating even the Methrangian Empire. Only his time in Zarmand caused him to consider the ancient city to be little, though. Its denizens numbered well clear of one hundred thousand and the near-in farmlands around it contained three times that number.

Many of its closely clustered buildings were made of a peculiar bright purple stone native to the area, supposedly a longstanding gift from either Omonrel or Vorlan. Others were built from the dark red woods surrounding the region, all carved with intricate designs of the varied and strange wildlife native to the adjacent lands and Lake Gelzon, especially those waters' deep reaches. His own family estate resided on the far northwest side, just within a random jog along the lakefront

Though he had taken some precautions regarding his hair and beard to appear sufficiently different from the once omnipresent Lord Feradnor, he purchased with his last few coins on his person a humble leather farmer's hat that felt terribly out of place in autumn. Nonetheless, it helped him navigate the labyrinthine circuitous streets of Rafnious, crowded with merchants desperate to unload what remained of that season's harvest, without notice.

When at last he arrived at the stone wall, topped with iron spikes that curved outward, the encircled his family estate, he was stunned to see the gates locked without any guards, servants, or other attendants in sight. The black stone manor seemed lifeless, without any candles lit inside or banners waving outside.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

What happened here? he thought as he stared though the front gate for countless moments. Did...

"Milord?!" a familiar servant's voice asked from his right, jolting him in place. He turned. It was sweet old Ninda, the hunchbacked elderly maid who had belonged to his family's service since before he was born. Her head was wrapped in a dull floral garment, but her blue eyes were bright at the sight of him. "Don't think I don't recognize your nose when I see it."

She shuffled closer toward him, her fraying shoes kicking aside some desiccated plants along the stone path.

"Yes, it's me," he said softly. "But please don't make a fuss about it."

"Oh, of course not," she smiled. "We all thought you were dead when we heard 'bout Zarmand. How did you..."

"Who's 'we' in this case? Is my..."

"Oh yes, they're all fine," Ninda nodded cheerily. Her face then drooped instantly. "They all had to flee, though. Family of the man who threw in with Nethron, when the city turned back to Emperor Duronaht, well..."

His breath left him. He hadn't even considered that consequence and was ashamed he hadn't.

"They either went north or east," he mumbled aloud, despondent at the news.

"North," Ninda said. "Eltysa, she said she knew some folks up there that might do some good. They're probably Vedous, though."

Eltysa's small family estate far to the north, fully encompassed by Vedous territory, had been a useful diplomatic link to that critical group when Feradnor was in service to Duronaht. Now, however, with Feradnor presumed dead and his betrayal of Duronaht well-known, he feared their reaction to his family.

"How long ago?" Feradnor asked.

"Almost immediately after we got word of Zarmand. Eltysa knew it'd be bad for the family," Ninda said mournfully, but then cheered up and drew a pouch of coins from the weathered leather bag she wore. "Here. She paid all of the staff nicely before she left. This is a small amount of what she gave me. I was gonna buy myself a new kettle today, but I think you've got better uses for it."

He opened it, seeing well more than enough coins to buy passage to his wife's original estate. Enough to get a good dagger or two as well, and still more after that. My dear Eltysa, you must've plundered the entire safe to pay them this much.

He bowed to her, drawing a startled reaction from Ninda.

"I'm in your debt, truly," he said. "I'll set off immediately."

She tugged at his dirtied robes before he could break off from her.

"I just want to know one thing," she said. "How did you survive? Everyone who saw it said nothing made it."

He closed his eyes and again saw the empty gaze of the burned husk that laid upon him in the river. He bit his lip and winced before deciding to state it simply.

"The High Angel spared me," he said, holding up his left hand and its missing fingers. Ninda gasped. "She didn't even intend to, but she decided to leave me there after she spoke to me. She said she'd speak to me again if I proved myself and, it's the strangest thing, I can think of nothing else now. I need Forynda to speak to me again."

Ninda collected herself and smiled.

"Safe travels, milord," she said cheerily, nodding. "I'm sure she will."

He left his old estate and immediately made for the stables to hire himself yet another wagon. This journey would be far harder. The Vedous were always only grudging subjects of the Methrangian Empire and the world's turmoil could not have helped that strengthen. If he was to do anything of any worth, he would first need to reunite with his family. Of that he was certain. The road to the High Angel's blessing lay to the north.

~

Time passed in indistinct blocks. It was pain, light, darkness, twisted dreams, more pain, more light, more darkness, and so on. He had no concept of what day it was or where he was now housed. In fact, Nalt was barely even sure he was alive. His right armed tingled and he could scarcely feel his left leg.

"I say, Nalt," Mastohlt's voice echoed in the dark and damp stone chamber, "you look like you might be alive at last."

Nalt opened his eyes quickly, seeing that Mastohlt was in fact on the bed across from his. The pompous mage wore a single tan garment spackled with dirt and his precious hair was now just a matted mop.

That's something good that happened, at least, Nalt laughed to himself.

"They... captured us," Nalt mumbled.

"Astute observation!" Mastohlt chirped back. "Since you were out for some days after Aberos... did whatever it was he did to us, I answered questions on your behalf. I said you didn't know anything, which is true, even though I meant it to be a lie, fundamentally, even though the content of the lie was true. You probably don't understand what I mean, but..."

"I got it," Nalt strained, eager to stop Mastohlt's endless yapping. His head throbbed, a fact he increasingly blamed on his cellmate and not his injury. "We're in Gadisia still, right?"

"Correct," Mastohlt replied. "And everyone else is alive, so far as I know. For the moment. You actually happened to wake up at an opportune time. We are being summoned shortly."

"We're being executed," Nalt's heart sank. To think he'd survived just long enough to have an axe fall on his neck. He'd rather that Aberos had killed him. Being killed by an angel would at least be notable.

"I don't think so, actually. A cursory reading of Gadisian law some time ago told me that they don't do that. On the periphery of the world, it seems we're strangely enlightened," Mastohlt chuckled. "What's to come might actually be worse. Of course, who knows..."

Several clangs on the heavy metal cell door silenced Mastohlt. The door screeched open.

"Sounds like yer finally awake," the gruff muscular guard laughed as he leered over Nalt. "Can ya walk, or should I carry ya?"

"I think I'm good," Nalt weakly answered as he swung his legs from the bed to the cold stone ground. Shackled. He hadn't even noticed it at first. His hands, too, were shackled, allowing for only just enough movement to grab and eat bread.

"And neither of ya try anythin'," the guard growled, pointing a short sword at both of them. "There're dozens of guards 'ere and most of 'em aren't as nice as me."

"We're meeting with the others, are we?" Mastohlt cheerily inquired as he sprang up from his bed.

"That's right," the guard answered with a snicker. "Should be a fun time for ya."

Without much more being said, Nalt trudged behind the guard with Mastohlt behind him, their shackles clanging against one another and the stone floor. They passed endless rows of dank and horrid cells, some occupied and others vacant, but they all smelled. With his head already throbbing, Nalt wanted to vomit, but he had little other than water in his stomach as it was. He wondered when he had last eaten, or even been forced to eat, anything.

"Ah. 'ere ya are," the guard declared, opening another heavy metal door into a dimly lit room, and pushing Nalt and Mastohlt inside. "Enjoy."

It was a sparse and windowless room with just a few candles illuminating what little there was in the room. In the middle were a series of chairs where he saw Grenna, Wella, and the others all seated.

"Nalt, you're here!" Grenna declared ecstatically, though she was shackled to her chair, unlike any of the others, who instead only had their feet and hands restrained. Regardless, her dark skin and red hair were such a welcome sight. "I'd stand to hug you, but..."

Nalt's heart was filled with both joy and sorrow seeing her in the present predicament. He and Mastohlt took the remaining empty chairs, rickety and unstable things that they were, and sat across from Grenna. Wella and the others said nothing, their glum faces pointed toward the ground.

"So, we actually all made it," Grenna laughed, her face wincing around a scuff she received from Aberos's strike. "In a way. Not the way I was planning."

"Planning wasn't your strength," a woman's voice replied from the other side of a barred door on the side of the room opposite from where Nalt and Mastohlt had entered. The door swung open and into the room stepped a tall thin woman in a dark green and silver cloth uniform with dark red lacquered boots. Several men in the same uniforms followed in behind her. She had short curly black hair, a flat nose, and deep brown eyes. "I'll do you the courtesy of an introduction. My name is Commander Israga Vencot, leader of The Harbor's Eye."

Anyone who lived within five hundred miles of Gadisia knew The Harbor's Eye. It was Gadisia's spy network. They were mainly good, despite their name, at dealing with land-based smuggling across the Methrangian border, which was always Gadisia's more serious problem. Their resources were stretched thin, but one never wanted to fall under the Eye's gaze.

"I've avoided you for years," Grenna laughed. "Luck always runs out at some point, though, doesn't it? Alright, just kill me. I don't really want to get to know you."

Israga shook her head and took a few steps forward.

"I'm sorry, but I don't take orders from captives. Besides, the world already knows that the Red Blade mercenary company was killed in their failed attempt. All of you have been declared dead, your bodies thrown unceremoniously in the harbor as food for our fish," the commander said in an eerily even tone. "As it happens, Gadisian law doesn't permit the execution of prisoners, but the confluence of our declaration that you died in combat and the actual fact you're alive is of some use to us."

"I told you," Mastohlt whispered to Nalt. "But this is definitely going to be worse than a quick execution."

Israga's eyes turned on the mage and Nalt, remaining on them for several silent seconds.

"I have a number of tasks for you against Gadisia's enemies, if you are interested in avoiding rotting in those cells for the rest of your lives," she continued. "The fact that a plan as farcical as yours came close to decapitating the Gadisian government makes me wonder if there is untapped potential here. And I intend to tap it if it's there."

Nalt sighed, relieved that death did not await him that day, but also bracing for what horrible fate might lurk in the future now that he, at least for the moment, would live.

Mastohlt might well be right. Maybe execution now would've been better.