“I reckon I should’ve chosen the class of Polymath.”

Salem let out a quiet laugh at Takan’s words. “Scared of the dark, Brother?” he asked, ducking beneath a branch.

It was over two hours since they’d left the camp. Darvi led the way, the brothers following quickly behind. The map of this part of the forest was not one that had ever been in the history of the realm. The acknowledgement that it was the first of its kind, and something no one else had verified, gave it a sufficient lack of dependency. Still, Darvi and Ezril memorized its layout before leaving. Ezril had no doubt they had done it for differing reasons.

Ezril had secured writing materials after the meeting with his brothers and had presented a drawing of it to Salem. Truth be told, from what he saw as Salem perused the parchment, the seminary could’ve done a better job if they had also taught them how to draw.

“You should’ve given your choice more thought when you had the chance, brother,” Darvi chided Takan as they proceeded. “Advocates will fight until there’re no more fights left.”

“It’s not the fights I don’t like,” Takan replied, “it’s thisspecific fight. Noem has us doing pointless and risky things. It makes no sense.”

Darvi stopped in his tracks. His eyes settled on a tree branch above them before whisking away to another point. Ezril had no need for an order. He moved as easily as he walked, his hands and feet finding leverage upon the tree’s bark. In a moment he stood atop the branch.

The night did little to hinder sight. The moon, though not full, did more than enough to illuminate their surroundings. Still, the path before them proved skeptical. Ezril cast his gaze around. The high ground gave him advantage.

At first, nothing seemed out of place. Every tree stood where Vayla had intended it, covered in the shine of the moon. Then, further still, his gaze met a desolation. He saw the walls of the reported city. From where he stood all he made out was its size. He could make nothing more of it and didn’t care to. Between them laid far more pressing matters. Disbelief labored his breaths as he made his way down.

He dropped to his feet without a sound. The feel of the dirt was absent to him. “We have a problem,” he reported. “A great deal of it.”

“Night watch?” Darvi asked.

He shook his head. “There are no trees up ahead.”

Darvi’s brows furrowed. “What do you mean ‘no trees’?”

Ezril pinched the bridge of his nose. The confusion and frustration seemed to be getting the better of him. It was a forest, that alone promised the presence of trees despite the existence of a city in the middle of it. But there were no trees. If there had been some form of construction upon the land to explain what he had seen, maybe he would have had a clearer explanation for his brother.

But he had none.

“There are simply no trees for at least a mile before the walls,” he said with the calmest voice he could muster. “It’s not bright enough to see a reason, but I feel we’ll find one once we get to the clearing.”

Darvi’s expression grew skeptic, delving into a look that suggested they return to camp and call an end to it. But Ezril knew his brother too well to expect such a command. They would proceed and find out just what exactly he meant by ‘no trees’. It wasn’t as if he was against the idea, even his curiosity wanted to know what he meant by what he had seen and said.

Two other parties had been given tasks as they were tonight. Ezril wondered if Lenaria was in one of them. He hadn’t gotten the chance to see her before they had embarked on their mission and it served to trouble his mind.

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

The many skirmishes they had engaged in were slowly proving themselves a preparation for a war, and Ezril found he didn’t like it.

Why did she have to be posted here?

The answer came as swiftly as the question. This is where the best are sent.

He had seen her in war, but he had no delusions that she was the best priestess the church had to offer. She was new, and she was strong. It was the reason she had been sent. But only the Abbess knew of her true potential. The others only knew that she was strong.

She’s expendable, he concluded. As are we.

They had barely cleared two more miles when they found what he had seen. And it was every bit as disturbing as he had expected it to be, even more so than when seen from afar.

The moon provided enough light to make out a thing or two for any who stood before it. Still, they remained within the covers of the trees, unknowing of who could be watching, and from where.

Salem turned to Ezril, a look on his face Ezril could only surmount to be confusion, as though he would have an answer to the mystery before them.

“Trees do not just vanish, brother,” he insisted, as if that would pry a hidden answer from Ezril. “There would be stumps. Roots. Something that shows there were once trees. This is nothing. This can’t be nothing.”

Ezril sighed. “I cannot help you on this one, brother. There are no trees.”

“What happens now?” Takan asked. It was clear their brother wanted to bring the mission to an end, and even clearer that he accepted it would never happen so easily.

Olufemi stepped into the clearing. Darvi’s reach for him was all but reflexive, and late.

“No one’s watching,” Olufemi said in vrail after a while, his shoulders relaxed, and his gaze casting across the clearing.

Takan sighed in disbelief but said nothing.

The rest of them stepped out beside Olufemi. They moved forward, eyes cast across the clearing. Though they had a level of trust in their brother’s words, unlike Ezril, caution never left their steps, their visage ready to beat a hasty action should one be required.

Salem was the first to speak.

“It’s as if they’ve been burned right down to their roots.” He dropped to his knees. “Look,” he said, placing his hand to the ground, “glass.”

Ezril noted the increased caution in Salem’s movement at the realization of what had happened. He didn’t blame him. He knew a thing or two about the process behind it. Once, when he had told Salem about the glass designs he had seen during his spiritual service, Salem had told him about it.

He remembered clearly one of the ways to have glass from sand.

Now Ezril grew wary. The caution he had almost lost from his trust in Olufemi returned with a foreboding. For sand to be glass there has to be a massive amount of heat, he remembered. In this case it was so massive it took tree, stump, and root.

“What could have done it?” Darvi asked, kneeling before another patch of glass as wide as would be expected of a large tree. It was odd to know there had once stood a tree there.

Salem shook his head. “I have no idea. But I hope to Truth that this isn’t a weapon.”

“A weapon!” The alarm was clear in Takan’s voice.

Darvi shot him a look. “Be quiet!” he hissed. “Do you want the whole Arlyn forest to know we are here?”

Ezril ignored them. He knelt beside Salem, his hand upon the ground but his gaze on Olufemi’s face. Annoyance screamed in Olufemi’s frown. They may not know what had done this but it seemed Olufemi was clearly angered by the fact that it had been done.

Ezril’s hand met the rough glass and he pulled it away abruptly, as if burned. The flare in his shoulder was unmistaken, even more painful than it had ever felt. Not a hum. Not a buzz. But a bite.

“Tainted,” he muttered.

“What?” Darvi rose to meet them.

“A Tainted,” he repeated, gaining him a puzzled look from Takan. He rose, resigned to his conclusion and spread his arms, indicating the vast expanse. “All of this was done by a person’s touch.”

“Impossible!”

Takan shot Darvi a panicked look.

Ezril couldn’t blame Darvi. He was certain even Takan felt the same way. And while he couldn’t read Olufemi’s expression, it was clear Salem was trying to work some kind of logic into the possibility of what he had said.

All said, there had never been a report of a Tainted with this much destructive power since their stay in the seminary. And, true enough, all they had been taught about the Tainted spoke of abilities that took a toll on the Tainted. Such a toll would never allow for such level of desolation.

“There can be no Tainted strong enough to enact this range of destruction,” Darvi insisted, refusing to believe. “It is not possible…”

“Unless…” Salem interrupted. “Unless it’s a number of Tainted with the same touch.” He stopped to consider it then shook his head in cognitive dissonance. “Even if that’s the case, they would need a considerable amount of time to pull this off. Even if by chance the Merdendi have within their ranks as many men with this touch as the trees that have been scorched it would have no doubt taken them a considerable amount of time to turn stump to ash and sand to glass. And if the stump had become ash, then what would be the point of staying longer to turn sand to glass?” He rose, the disagreement in his eyes. “This is going to be a problem.”