“The gods are watching you,” rang through all of their heads as the rumbling voice resonated through their bones. The presence disappeared in a moment and the magic nullification that had bathed the room disappeared. With the exception of Helianna, the return of magic felt inundating and everyone collapsed to the floor, Sylas even blacking out for a brief moment. Groans filled the room and people slowly picked themselves up. Helianna’s wide eyes were clear through the bone mask.

“What happened to you guys?” Helianna asked, confusion and disbelief clear in her voice.

“Just give us a minute,” snapped a kinuze man that Sylas didn’t recognize. She calmed down and waited for the others to regain their bearings. She watched as her mother, her eyes still wet from crying, helped Sylas up when he remained on the ground longer than the others. One of the women spoke and Helianna recognized her as a close friend of her mother’s.

“That… god… he removed all the magic in the room. I think. When it all came back at once, it was…” She paused for a few moments. “Overwhelming.”

“Wait, but none of the gods should be able to do that, right?” asked Helianna. “They each only have control over one of the affinities.”

Her question was met with silence, most of them still completely stunned by the god’s voice. Those that weren’t stunned had no answer. She looked over at Sylas, and saw his normally sandy skin so pale that it looked more like ash and he was still being supported by her mom.

“Sylas? Are you okay?”

He held a hand up, as if asking to take a minute before responding.

“Mom, can you sit him down?” Helianna began to walk towards them, but her mom stopped her.

“Anna, we need to take the bones off. Then you can talk to him. I think he’s just in shock.” She leaned forward to whisper in Helianna’s ear. “He just heard a god speak and likely had his whole world-view changed. Let him think for a bit.”

Helianna looked back at Sylas and was inclined to agree. His skin was already starting to return to normal color, but he was simply staring at the ground in front of him. She nodded and let her mom remove the bones from her body. The bones were then left in order on the ground in the center of the ritual as the others filed out. When they were done, Helianna slowly approached Sylas.

“Sylas, we need to go.” He looked up at her, his face still hollow.

“Why?”

“Um… we can’t just stay in the basement.”

“Why us? This is your fault, isn’t it?” he accused.

“My fault? What are you talking about?”

“The gods. They don’t care. They never have. They don’t pay attention. They’re gone. They don’t care about us,” he rambled. “But why now? And why us?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did you do?”

“Do you… not want the gods’ attention?”

“Of course not!” he snapped, emotion appearing on his face once more as he stood up. “If they’re paying attention to people again, then…” he trailed off.

“They never stopped paying attention, Sylas.” He leveled a weak glare at her. “It can be subtle and you may not always see it, but they care and they do have a hand in our lives. The starfalls are a perfect example of that.”

“That’s bullshit. The starfalls are like clockwork every month and the people that become ithrax are completely random. That’s no influence of the gods. Just some byproduct of some ancient experiment of theirs.”

“And yet you heard him. They’re not gone. They’re paying attention to us.” Sylas pursed his lips and looked away.

“What are we supposed to do about that?” he asked exasperatedly. Helianna responded with a wry smile.

“For now, kill me.” He blinked in shock for a few moments. “I still have some pretty serious wounds, remember? They’re slowly killing me and they hurt like hell.”

“R-right.” He reached for a knife at his side.

“Wait! Not here! Not inside!”

He rolled his eyes as he responded, “Fine.”

They walked out of the basement as a man passed them on the way down to deal with the ritual. Helianna stopped to tell her mom what they were about to do and that she’d be back in a week. There were some protests, but after some assurance that it would be fine and that she’d done it before, her mother capitulated.

After taking a few minutes to remove the bones, they left the town. A quick slash of the knife and Helianna was once again, dead. The people that had been concentrated near the attack were desperate for answers, but not many came. Sylas wasn’t particularly eager to talk to them between his pre-existing prejudice and the language barrier also making it more difficult. The other person with the most answers was Helianna’s mother. She didn’t have the full story, but she had heard enough when she caught up with Helianna and did her best to fill in the other villagers.

She told them what happened and why. Immediately upon hearing the story, some blamed her and Helianna for attracting The Academy’s ire, but a majority turned their aggression towards The Academy. They already hadn’t been seen as favorably as in Alaric, but with this event, all goodwill towards The Academy was gone. Sylas couldn’t understand the constant muttering that he heard in the next week, but it didn’t take much effort to understand the grief and anger that coursed through the village. Meanwhile, Sylas was recovering from his magic overuse and was unable to build up his magic reserves to respawn Isela.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

By the time a week had passed from the attack, the rebuilding effort slowed to a crawl. People had initially been eager to rebuild their lives as fast as possible and had begun preparations immediately. But the villagers became increasingly bitter and felt unsafe staying, meaning the budding rebuilding effort was struggling. Sylas was helping throughout the process, but couldn’t stop thinking about what happened. His view on the gods had been turned on its head in only a few moments. To make it worse, it served as proof that the gods paid attention to the death rites that the Wulvinians were performing. While it validated what the Wulvinians did, it didn’t change the fact that it all seemed so barbaric to him. How could the gods favor something so awful?

He was contemplating all of this while in the middle of helping clear the rubble that remained of a dead neighbor’s house when he felt a gut-wrenching sensation. It felt as if all of his magic was being forcibly pulled out of him, exiting his every pore. It was one of the most painful things he’d ever experienced - and he’d died before. It felt as if needles were penetrating his skin throughout his whole body and embedding themselves in his core, replacing all his magic. He fell to the ground, unable to breath or speak and passed out before the feeling could subside.

He woke up only a few seconds later, groaning. His already strained magic had been pushed to its limit again, doing further damage. It wasn’t at a point where it was irreparable, but he could instantly tell recovery would now take much longer. He opened his eyes to see Helianna standing above him. Apparently, that was what it felt like when Helianna respawned off someone and he only had thought in response.

“Fuck you.”

After a few moments of disorientation, Helianna bent down to help Sylas up, the others too stunned to act. He didn’t resist, allowing her to stand him up.

“What the hell happened?” she asked as she looked around at the state of her village. The last thing she remembered was catching up with her family and going to bed.

“You showed us your creepy magic. The village got attacked. We did the death rites for your father.” He said bluntly as he got his feet under him, not thinking about what he had said.

“What?!” She demanded and he sighed, now realizing what he had said.

“You should talk to your mother. She’s at the temporary shelters.”

Helianna immediately abandoned him and ran towards where he had gestured the shelters were, quickly finding her mother. The following conversation was the most difficult one of either of their lives. And for Helianna, having to learn of her father’s death and burial as if she hadn’t been there, even though she had, was one of the strangest and most horrible feelings she’d ever experienced. It took her more time than before to reign in her emotions again, but after crying into her mother’s shoulder for a while, she eventually managed to regain control. Without the pain to distract like before, it was much more difficult.

Regardless, she managed to reclaim control of her emotions and pulled away from her mother, who was also crying softly.

“We need to go,” Helianna stated emotionlessly. “This place isn’t safe.” She grabbed her mothers hand and pulled her along as she returned towards Sylas. Sylas saw her approach and despite the tear tracks on her face, the cold and emotionless look that greeted him unnerved him.

“Sylas.”

“What?” he asked uneasily.

“We need to leave. They found us here after only a couple days. Even though it is my hometown, it’s still on the other side of the world from The Academy and in a continent that doesn’t view them favorably. They got here fast. If they don’t have another team coming, it would be strange. I’m surprised they haven’t been here already.”

A range of thoughts flew through his head before he sighed. “We need to be here. We caused this and we need to help deal with the consequences.”

“It won’t help if we simply lead more here and have another battle that kills what’s left of the town. Staying here is dangerous for the townspeople and serves no purpose for us. We should leave. We can’t stay here forever after all.”

“Fine,” Sylas responded and looked towards Jana. “What are you going to do?”

“She can come with us,” Helianna interrupted. “Staying here is too dangerous as they could target her and my brother for being related to me. Possibly try to use them as leverage.”

“No,” her mother interrupted.

“What?” Helianna asked, surprised.

“I can’t go with you. I am not a fighter. I am a civilian. I will only slow you down and even might put you in more danger.”

“That’s not-” Helianna started, but her mother interrupted her.

“You will need to protect me and I refuse to let you two die in front of me by trying to protect me and your brother. No. I will stay. Not here specifically in the village, but I will stay in Wulvinia, probably not even Cagland.” She looked around, taking in the town and the temporary shelters that people were living in.

“Mom-” Helianna started, but her mother interrupted again.

“I need to stay here anyways. Someone needs to manage these people. There’s a lot of hatred for The Academy right now and if it’s not managed or controlled, it will only result in a bunch of needless deaths. I’ll see what I can do to deal with them, then I’ll figure something out. I won’t let your brother and I become a target for The Academy, whether that’s by your side or not.”

Silence reigned as Helianna thought for several moments.

“Alright mom. But you can at least stay with us now. Help us with planning.”

“No,” her mother refuted once more. “On the off-chance that we are captured, I should have as little knowledge of what you guys are doing or where you are. I won’t jeopardize your safety if I can avoid it.”

“Fine,” Helianna acquiesced unhappily

“Now you two talk about it and figure it out.” Her mother sighed. “I have some people to go deal with. I… I hate to have you leave right now, but it’s necessary. Just make sure you say goodbye before you leave.” Her voice wavered slightly as she made her request and Helianna nodded.

Jana gave the surprised Helianna a quick hug before she turned around and walked back towards the temporary shelters. She started gathering the people together as Helianna and Sylas briefly watched on, amazed at her fortitude in the light of everything that was happening. She had just lost her husband, many of her friends and neighbors, her daughter would be once again leaving, and her life was upended. In response, she was putting it all to the side and taking charge.

“Damn,” Sylas said, knocking Helianna out of her reverie. He struggled to believe what he was seeing. Her husband had died only a little over a week ago and while she clearly wasn’t fine, she was functioning on a level that he thought strange. Helianna was the same. Despite crying only a few minutes ago, she was walking around and talking as if nothing had happened. Helianna turned to Sylas as he was now lost in his thoughts.

“We need to make a plan.”