Sparks, and he would never be Old Spark or even Old Man Sparks, had lived in Willow’s Wind for so long he remembered the trees that seeded the saplings whose seeds were roaming the village’s streets today.

That didn’t make him old, mind you, nor did it make him wizened. You gather a few years on your back and sprouts are suddenly following you ‘round wanting ‘old tales.’ Humbug, Ol— Sparks was happy to tell stories. These kids would hardly know their lefts and rights without him, but they needn’t be mean about it.

He groaned as he pushed out of bed. The nights were getting colder each year. Stiff-legged, his hip locked near immovable, Sparks scrambled to grab his cane. For his injury, mind you. His skilled thatcher’s hands had slipped one early morning not five years ago. Now, his leg took just a short while to warm up each morning.

Not that he’d gotten a full night’s sleep in a few years, at least. It was all those newcomers, setting worries into his heart and bones, waking him up at night. Puffing with exertion, he slipped his outer robe on and shuffled outside. The night was dark still, hours away from sunrise. His cane thumped hollowly on the dirt, his slippered feet scratching with each step.

“Too cold,” he muttered, knotting his weather-worn fingers into an empty fist, the other curling on his cane. When he’d built his house, he’d planted a fresh willow behind it. Standing almost as tall as he, it now rose above the roof. The drooping branches, sparsely speckled with brown and red leaves, tickled his bare scalp as he got underneath its cover.

He huffed out a harsh breath, as a harsh gust of wind washed over him, a few raindrops striking his face. “It better not start raining,” he groused and adjusted his trousers.

This was yet another problem. It hadn’t ever rained as much as after those newcomers arrived. Once the Tage nobles fell apart, the villages surrounding them had crashed similarly. Though Sparks hadn’t seen the faintest light of the nobles, plenty of the villagers hadn’t just come by. They’d settled down.

He scowled, shaking himself. “Come on,” he cursed. The wind blew harshly out through the nearby forest. Almost seemed to howl. Or was that laughter? Sparks scoffed and finally got a stream going. Leaning his head back, he sighed in relief. A flash of light played across his closed eyelids.

Frowning, he opened them, but the night was dark. Except, that dull yellow light couldn’t be the moon… Another light, this one pale blue, flashed brightly in the sky. A merchant’s train had once passed through Willow’s Wind. One guard claimed to have traveled with a tethered to the far north, where lights played across the skies.

Times truly were horrific if these lights had reached their home. He shook himself again, but it seemed he wasn’t quite finished yet. Attempting to push harder only skewed the angle as he knew it would.

The icy blue light flared again, and something passed from the dim yellow into it. A strange ripple passed over the trees. A wave of what looked like suspended water rushed out of the tree-line, crossing the thirty feet to Sparks in an instant. Droplets struck his exposed face like pebbles thrown by an overgrown toddler. He started as a branch tore up clods of dirt, passing less than ten feet to his right.

Wood groaned and cracked. To Old Spark’s wide-eyed astonishment, he saw a willow fall over, branches snapping like dry twigs. Realizing he’d finished some time ago, he returned all his equipment to where it needed to be. Shuffling out from under his willow, he leaned heavily on his cane.

His breath suddenly steamed before him with each breath. Blue light silhouetted a slumped over form that only vaguely resembled a human. A flesh-torn! He realized, startled. A Ralith in Willow’s Wind.

“Oh Goddess,” he muttered, staggering back and losing his cane. He fell to the ground, witnessing as dewy grass froze. Scrambling backwards, the monster straightened when it was struck by the yellow light.

It looked as if a dark tail extended from its center. It struck the monster with such force the ground nearly jumped out from underneath Old Sparks’ prone form. Quivering, Sparks lay completely still as the tail retrieved from the broken form and coiled around the creature high in the sky.

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

“Oh, Goddess. Please, I’ll pray to you every day, just spare me,” he whimpered, cradling his gnarled fingers before him as if to stop the blow he knew to be coming.

Yet the light hadn’t yet turned to him. It hovered in the sky for long moments, the faint sound of chuckling carrying on the winds. Sparks started slowly crawling away. If only he could get around his house, the… he’d seen the tail what could it be.

There was only one being he knew of that was so strong as this… Pale-faced, his hand found the cane he’d lost and knocked it into the house. The world became still. Life froze around him as two purple suns emerged from the yellow light. It was looking at him. Staring into his soul.

Then it rose into the sky and flew away, trailing a diffuse tail.

###

“I told you!” Sparks said. “I wasn’t lying.”

Ejnar scratched his ragged brown beard, a few specks of white at the chin, as he examined the crater. The corpse was definitely human, though identifying more than this was difficult. His? Body was so broken you’d need to dig through the frozen remains to be sure.

“It’s a tethered, alright. But that doesn’t mean what else you said’s true,” Ejnar said reluctantly.

“Bah,” Sparks scoffed. Ejnar had always been too tall for his boots, even as a kid.

Willow’s Wind’s mayor, carpenter, and brewer shuffled on his feet before gingerly prodding the corpse with a booted foot.

“I told you. Varumgándr itself is reborn. Came and struck this here man down!”

Ejnar still gave him a suspicious look. The undergrowth rustled as Björn emerged. The woodsman stood taller and wider than most doors, though he currently carried no weapon. His sheer stature was intimidating. Not that Sparks would ever show that to the upstart child.

A kid, no older than fifteen, followed Björn out of the forest. His name escaped Sparks, but most kids did nowadays, too many of them running around. All they were good for was talking at, anyway. He looked a spitting image of his father, already taking on much of his bulk.

“There’s another one,” the huntsman confirmed.

Ejnar had a pained expression on his face, glancing at Sparks from the corner of his eye. “Can you tell anymore about them?”

Björn shrugged massive shoulders. “I think it was a woman.”

“Bah!” Sparks dismissed the fool notion with a wave of his hand. “Don’t be foolish, act your age.”

“It was so!” the kid fought back, but his father simply held out a hand to stop him.

“So what’ve you found?” asked Nitta, Ejnar’s wife, as she approached. She was rubbing her hands clean on her apron. Sparks thought he could smell her bread cooking. He had a good nose.

“Two bodies,” her husband said.

“And?”

Even Sparks felt a little disappointed with himself for not getting more answers, and she wasn’t even looking at him. “There’s not much else to find.”

“That one’s still wearing clothes,” she groused, as if pointing out something obvious. A moment later, she rolled her eyes and knelt to pull at what was remained of his shirt.

Sparks winced as flaky bits of frozen blood fell off. Bones fragile from the frost, shattering and broke at her rough handling. Sparks determinedly didn’t wince or squint as she dug through the corpse’s belongings.

“There ya go,” she said condescendingly, pulling out a leather wrapped object. Rimed over yellow fabric stuck out from between…

“A book,” Ejnar said, as gingerly took it from Nitta. He looked as if he feared it would bite him.

“Let’s take inside and heat it up first. Seems the leather’s gone brittle.” Nitta really acted like they weren’t grown men and couldn’t think for themselves. Sparks really should’ve been harsher on her when she was an uppity brat.

“Do you recognize the script?” Ejnar asked Björn, pointing to letters pressed into the front.

The hunter shook his head, and they both began walking back toward the village as if Sparks didn’t exist. Scowling and cursing, he followed them. “Let me have a look. I’ll identify it for you.”

He couldn’t.

###

Ranvir awoke to a headache and a blurry view of his office.

“Careful,” Pashar said, slicing into a small red apple. “You’ve been out for two days.”

“What happened?” he asked, taking the glass of water she tapped with the toe of her boot. He rubbed gingerly at his head, then looked around. He was lying on the floor of his office, Pashar sitting in the corner, also eschewing furniture.

“Either you consumed a vast amount of hallucinating drugs on your own, or you were thoroughly poisoned.”

Ranvir groaned as he carefully sipped the water.

“I locked you in here until we could get healers out to us. There were a few injuries, but none so bad as you. A few attempted to follow, but the Purist had brought plenty of reserves. They always deployed just enough to draw us back.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Ranvir muttered. “What about Vasso?”

“I think he came out of it well enough, spent the last day getting coddled by the Heir of Rime’s Shadow.”

Ranvir grunted a laugh that stung his head. “He wouldn’t mind that. You said you locked me in here?”

Pashar nodded. “By the time you returned to the School, you’d fully lost any connection with reality.”

“Hmm?”

“You had enough drugs in your blood to kill a few horses.” She grinned at him. “The term Master Stjarna used was, ‘A stall full,’ I believe. But you know, in fewer words.”

Ranvir grunted and ran a hand through his hair. That was what he was feeling, then. The mother of all hangovers.