Jalen sighed and pressed into the chairs back, arching to pop his spine as he stretched and moved for what felt like the first time in hours.

Iscah had been thorough in her search of the university's library. He had even scoured the dustier, less popular wings for anything but had come up empty-handed as he checked the list of titles she had left him with. What was more concerning is that even his side project of finding out who Saraf was had come back empty-handed. There were no references to her, as if her name had been erased from history or historians had thought her not worthy of being recognized at all. Yet Jalen felt she was a key player for whatever had truly happened that day so long ago.

Sucking his lower lip into his mouth he relaxed his arms, letting out a weary sigh as he rose and set the books in the return shelves near the desk. Pausing to wait for the librarian to look up from her own book.

When she realized he was not moving on she shut the cover tersely, covering the title of her romance novel too late as she looked up at him with a painfully forced smile.

"Yes."

"I was wondering if you know of any historic records on the Day of Darkness, or any information on Warlocks."

The woman paused, mouth twisting as if Jalen had said something offensive before lifting her chin up in preparation for a scolding.

"It's for a project in one of my classes," he quickly interceded, giving her one of his boyishly handsome smiles that Iscah had often remarked made her want to choke him.

The librarian tilted her head, gaze turning distant as she thought over the collection she was in charge of. "Have you tried Athrioclites?"

Jalen coughed loudly, smothering a maniacal grin behind his hand as he tried to get his reaction under control while her expression pinched once again.

"Sorry, yes. I didn't know if perhaps you knew of any other references. Thanks though," he managed, turning towards the exit.

"Who?"

"I'm sorry?" he looked back at her.

"Who is the professor that assigned you this project?"

"Oh, it's for one of my electives," he laughed softly, scratching at the back of his head sheepishly as he continued to back towards the front door. "It's right after lunch and I sleep through it most of the time, couldn't even tell you what their name is. Thanks again!"

Waving goodbye before she could ask any other invasive questions he headed out into the cloudy afternoon, wondering why that conversation had become so tense at the end.

Maybe Pillips wasn't as paranoid as you assumed, he thought to himself, shoving his hands in his pockets as he descended the marble steps and joined the foot traffic.

He hadn't been researching for very long, yet there were so many dead ends or vague records that really explained nothing at all.

Like there is intentional disinformation planted in all the historic documentation.

Checking the time on the clock-tower on the corner of the street he headed for his Dad's favorite bistro at a faster pace. He was already going to be late to his shift at the office, so might as well show up with some food and a cup of chicory-laced milk for his boss.

Opening the door he paused at the moderately long lunch line, but his stomach rumbled in discontent at being denied lunch when he had skipped on breakfast to use his time in the stacks instead. Joining the queue he let his thoughts return to what was already beginning to look like a hopeless endeavor.

If the librarians reaction to his request was any indication, his ability to scour the university's shelves would now be marked. But by whom?

Why would I even immediately assume this is all some conspiracy theory? Maybe she just hates Warlocks, or thought your interest in the subject was too childish for your age.

Yet his gut instinct was whispering a warning.

"—attacked last night. Her guards were killed but she was rescued when security posted at the dorms intervened."

"That's awful, I can't imagine coming face to face with a cambion. The poor girl."

"I'm sorry," the two ladies startled, turning to him with wide eyes. He could read the offense they took to having their conversation eavesdropped upon, but he offered a grin that helped dismantle their defensiveness. "You said someone was attacked?"

"Yes, some nobles barely survived a cambion attack. Nearly killed the gentleman before it escaped. What was the ladies name?"

The other girl frowned, lips pouting in the most adorable way as she tried to recall. "Isa?"

Jalen's stomach dropped, air rushing out of him as he bolted for the exit.

[https://i.postimg.cc/ht3bqpkV/blue-moon.jpg]

"You're late," Darl remarked pointedly as Jalen threw the door open, pausing at the threshold to brace his arms against his knees and gulp lungfuls of air down.

"Iscah was attacked."

"I know," his father replied, looking up somberly from the book he was penning numbers into.

"She's unharmed, at least physically anyway. Isren said she witnessed two brutal murders and they've taken her back to their estate to recover. Uninterrupted," he added when Jalen reached for the door again.

"The best thing you can do for her right now is let her get some rest. Besides, I need help updating some records that have come in for last month."

With a frustrated sigh he relented, hanging his satchel by the door and sitting down as his father vacated the seat behind the desk. He thumbed through the stack of paperwork, a frown creasing his forehead.

"Are these… birth records?"

"Death records," Darl replied, grabbing his coat from the rack. "When we're slow I contract out to the Physicka to help update their censuses. Tedious, but keeps money in our accounts. I've got to run some errands but won't be back until after supper, so close the shop for me?"

His son half nodded, distracted by the chicken scratch barely legible on the page he held. "I'll lock up."

The door clicked shut, and Jalen rubbed at his brow as he began deciphering the tightly written lines. Broken down by dukedoms, the entries were separated by date. Three names were listed on each, and it quickly became apparent that these were parents and the children they had lost.

I didn't realize how many children die every month.

He flipped through a few pages until the handwriting changed, this one from an area he recognized as being along the southern coast. It was a despairing length of names.

Shaking his head morosely, he picked up the already wetted pen and bent to the task.

[https://i.postimg.cc/ht3bqpkV/blue-moon.jpg]

Flexing his hands Jalen exhaled, fatigue wearing on him as he realized the entire day had gone by without a meal. Glancing outside at the bruised sky he closed the completed record book.

All aspiring accountants or bureaucrats in the city mandatorily attended licensed writing classes hosted freely by the university, their penmanship honed and disciplined until they all could write in the same concise, legible manner.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

While education was available to all, free time was not so optional for most families, or the handful of outlying schools too far of a travel to attend. Planting or harvest was a priority over writing and arithmetic, and so it had become more of a merchant or upper class privilege despite it being a free service. Thus the far-away records from villages and remote towns was mandated to be re-entered in the same penmanship that the government required.

Work complete, he set the sheaf of papers in a file box and closed the curtains, digging into his satchel to pull out Athrioclites tome before sitting back down.

There were so many questions swirling in Jalen's mind. Had the cambion who had attacked Iscah's guards been the one she had been having dreams of? Who was the other nobleman in her room that night? None of it made sense, the mysteries stacking one on top of another until he was dizzy with confusion.

Now more than ever he felt the need to help his friend find answers to the questions she had asked him that afternoon not so long ago. She may have been completely isolated from her task, but he was not.

Picking up the letter opener he sucked in a deep breath, bracing his finger before sliding the blade against his skin just deep enough to cause blood to bloom in the knick. Pressing it on the book he waited as it transitioned, turning to the lone fingerprint.

He had found no answers in the library, but perhaps he had missed out on some details that would help give him a break in the case. But as he descended into the spell, he realized as the colors shifted and came into focus that this was not the same memory as the one he had seen before.

[https://i.postimg.cc/ht3bqpkV/blue-moon.jpg]

She wasn't sure if the aching in her body is what woke her or the agonized scream from the Physicker quarters not far away. Either way she opened her eyes to stare at the canvas sheet that made four walls before pushing up into a sitting position on the cot. Every part of her hurt, and sleep had done very little to recover body and spirit.

Beside her came a male groan, the pile of rags shifting slightly as he stirred. "Barely dawn and the healers are already back at work? Does anyone sleep around here?"

She gave a mirthless laugh in response, her breath steaming in the biting cold. A shiver ran through her limbs and she focused inwardly, tapping into her soul energy to bring warmth to her blood to chase away the freeze. Begrudgingly the cold relented, and she gave a tired sigh before pushing back a lock of brittle hair from her face.

"Possibly our last day alive and you want to sleep in. Typical, Orick."

There was no response from the cot that had been pushed against hers at the failed attempt at humor, and she rose stiffly to shamble over to where a heavy winter coat was lying on the floor. It was military issued, stiff with dry blood and covered in burnt patches.

"It's a sad day when warlocks have to wear clothing for need rather than style," he grumbled, having peeked out from beneath their shared blankets. She shot him a faint smile, holding her arms up for a moment to pose in the oversized coat.

"Do I look like a soldier?"

"You look like a corpse, Saraf. So yeah, basically."

Saraf grimaced, letting her hands drop back to her sides dejectedly as she stared at him. He looked no better off. Orick's once-fiery red curls were now dull, all his roots grey to match the skin that hung off the bones of his face. Only his sunken eyes of cobalt blue remained lustrous, but they too reflected his fatigue. Her retort died in her chest, and she turned away from the shadow of a man she used to know to push the tent flap out of her way and head outside.

The ground had frozen overnight, turning the mud of the lanes between tents an ordeal to walk across. Saraf pulled the jacket around her tighter before picking up the water bucket a servant normally filled and headed to the river upstream of the encampment.

The tread was morose, many tents empty or plots where ones used to be bare. The soldiers numbers were dwindling just as the warlocks own were, and there was a silence of defeat blanketing the area.

Heading into the thinned woods she took the worn path to the river, nodding to the sentries standing on the top of the bank who were huddled in layers of jackets and blankets yet still hypothermic. They glanced at the warlock but knew better than to ask for a touch of warmth, both looking elsewhere than at her.

Saraf bent over at the rivers edge and reached down to scoop a handful of water, shocked how painful the cold actually was. If this was what it was like for the humans, she did not envy them.

Filling her pail halfway she struggled to lift it, pausing as alarm thrilled across her flesh and left goosebumps in its wake. Lifting her attention from the task she scanned the opposite bank, looking for something, anything out of place.

It was empty, until it wasn't.

Motion in her peripheral snapped her gaze onto a halfling as he phased out of the shadows of a short cottonwood tree. His pitch-black eyes locked with hers, and slowly he lifted a single finger to press it to the smile toying at his mouth.

Seraf's instincts screamed in warning, boiling pain lancing through her veins as power burned flesh and blood internally. Whipping around her hair caught and tore on the fingers that had slipped through it, backing away from the cambion's other hand where the dagger intended for her neck was angled.

She twisted it out of his frozen fingers and tore it across his throat instead.

Releasing the corpse from her will she glanced back at the other who was stranded on the far bank. Their eyes met, the amusement in his replaced with seething hatred, the smile now a rictus of fury.

"Guards," she whispered hoarsely, throat dry and cracked from the draw she had demanded of her body. "Guards! We're under att—"

A bell began tolling in alarm, the frantic peal joined by others.

Abandoning her pail she struggled up the bank and past the two dead guards that not moments earlier had been miserably alive.

Stupid, you were so stupid to risk yourself! She inwardly snarled, knowing she should have tasked a random servant to bring them water rather than expose herself so ignorantly.

Isenius had lied to them. These were no mindless berserkers, nor simple instinct-driven animals. They were people with minds honed to lethal edges from the decade-long command to war. The invisible collars that had enslaved them had disintegrated when the coven had become too few in number to control the tethers. And so the skills perfected to annihilate the full-blooded demons had turned on their masters with such efficiency that the Royal Army who had outnumbered them seven-to-one stood at a quarter of its original size in just a handful of months.

The ratio for the warlocks was even more dismal, their ever-weakening powers exposing them to assassinations and focused attacks that before would've never succeeded. The cambions knew they were the only true threat and had kept constant pressure on them, never giving them the chance to recover. Now, only a handful were left and all of them too drained to impact the inevitable.

The camp was a frenzy of activity, soldiers struggling into their gear even as they ran for set rendezvous points. Fear and panic drenched her nostrils as she fought the now-churned mud sucking her run into an arm-flailing jog.

Orick's weathered hair caught in the sunlight and flared copper as he searched her out in the chaos. Their eyes met and he headed in her direction, ricocheting off men too terrified to pay attention to their surroundings.

"Saraf, what's happening?"

"They're attacking the camp."

"But this location was secure!"

Saraf shook her head in response, grabbing his hand and changing their direction toward the Lord Commanders pavilion.

Their conversation dwindled to nothing, both gasping for air as they maneuvered through the bedlam. A lieutenant on horseback nearly ran over her, the man jerking the reins so that the animal reared, squealing as its eyes rolled. Saraf fell and shimmied back through the muck, nearly getting her ankle crushed as its hooves slammed back down.

Orick cursed the officer, but the offense was lost in the myriad of screams and shouts. Helping her up they waited as a group of soldiers charged past before continuing on to the black and gold flag rolling in the morning breeze.

The guards posted at the entrance pushed the tent flap back as they approached, and neither bothered with their ruined shoes as they stepped into the main room where Isenius, his advisors, and mages were already gathered. Runners and officers were talking over each other in earnest, each report more terrifying than the last.

"—attacks on all quadrants—"

"—allied with the demons and are using a fucking giant to break through the ranks—"

"—five platoons are gone—"

Isenius' attention snapped behind them as they joined those gathered, raising his hand for silence. All of the strained voices trailed off as the groups attention shifted to the person standing at the entrance.

Naon.

He was not the picture of health, but fared better than they. Gaunt but not skeletal, his dark brown hair had fallen out to leave his pate bare.

Orick couldn't stop the small sound of disgust from escaping him as their brother bowed to the Lord Commander.

"It seems, we are now out of options," Isenius spoke over the muted cries of battle outside the canvas walls.

"My Lord Commander, please," Saraf began, stumbling over her words. "That dagger— with the coven so thin there's no guarantee the Obyrith that's unleashed will be controllable."

"Then give me another alternative, tell me how to save everyone!"

She recoiled in shock, mind grasping at emptiness. Even Orick was silent beside her, at a loss for any other plan.

"We are dying," Naon began, garnering their attention. There was desperation in his fevered eyes. "The last of us are dying."

Saraf looked at those gathered, and saw the same in each of their faces. The arch-mages who had publicly condemned them as incompetent and their abilities accursed. The generals whom before would never meet their gaze, as if that could hide their disgust. Even the soldiers who whispered to one another that their coven was secretly empowering Zidaii's rebels. Every one of them were now pleading in silence to the three pariah's with the most dangerous of emotions: hope.

It was a disease that had spread through the room, none of them knowing or understanding the true consequences of. Her chest clenched, heart aching for the Warlocks long ago. Was this what it had been like for them? Outcast and hunted by their own people out of hate and fear of their magic, had they justified opening the veils to the demons with the same desperation?

Their survival had killed this world. Corpses of civilizations decayed beyond recognition, their legacies not even capable of being a legend, for there were no longer any memories of them. The world as it was now known was just a piece of a continent they no longer knew the edges of.

Because of hope, all of it was our fault.

"We can't. Don't ask us to do this," she whispered, tears blurring her vision. Orick's cold fingers framed her cheekbones and pulled her eyes to his, and what she saw in them made her sob in loss.

He had been infected, too.