Shiri’s hands shook as she walked across the battlefield before the school. The once even plain of grass had turned into an obsidian darkened mud-churned terror. Hills of bared soil and rock rose like twisted barrows. Instead of protecting the dead, they spewed them forth.

Rooks screamed and fought amongst themselves for the scraps of food remaining. Their dark feathers fluttered by the hundreds, their shrieks filling the sky with noise. Each caw bit into Shiri’s ears, a shattering sound evoking images of dropped things. Pottery shattered on the ground, never to become whole.

I’m comparing the killing of hundreds to pottery. She stumbled, catching herself against cold, unyielding metal. Battered bronze plated covered the soldier’s chest. His face was so covered in blood and damage that she couldn’t initially make out where he’d come from. The bronze helmet on his head had availed him none, the conical top crushed.

Shiri staggered away, dropping a patch of unsullied soil. Vomited spilled from her, leaving a little pool of her own bile amongst the violence of the combat.

Teary-eyed, she straightened. Staggering away, she constantly fell upon another horror. Body after body. Abandoned limbs.

Why did I come here?

Faceless bodies splayed across a field, like abandoned dolls no longer worthy of play. Among them walked only the carrion eaters. Rooks nearing two feet long, black flies buzzing fat yet soon to die in the cold, hidden among the injuries white maggots feeding off the horror.

There is a sort of beauty to it. Where life once was, life has come again. By summer, the plants will flourish and these barrows could become a garden.

It was a wretched thought. She knew before thinking it. A wretched attempt at wiping clean something that was too horrifying for her to face in reality. Filling the abandonment of hope and life with platitudes.

Closer now, there were signs of the occupation. Shattered wagons and broken crates. Here a shattered pavilion, canvas ceiling flapping in a low breeze. Ceaseless and untiring. Thwap, thwap, thwap. A box stuck out in the ruins of the tent. One panel painted with the healers’ mark — a white circle bound in black.

With the realization, the tent cover changed. The strange humps underneath took on a fearsome light. The cloth’s snap, snap, snap, a hand begging for release, hoping to catch attention.

She turned away, staggering the last few steps to the door. Heaving for breath, sweat dimpling her forehead despite the cold. Her hand trembled on the handle. What would she find inside? She’d asked to come here. She’d asked to see it. Could she open the door?

Her fingers tightened on the frozen handle, her pulse pounding into her head. Shattering her calm with each wracking beat. She fought the dizziness, shortness of breath, and the weak limbs. Finally, she forced the door open. She had to see.

Nothing.

There was nothing inside. From the gray slate of the basement to the wooden planks of the ceiling, everything in between was gone. Rubble on the floor. Debris piled in hills were the rooms used to be.

All that remained was the purple light hanging where the basement’s ceiling once was, and the two portals to the other worlds. Worlds she’d visited. Memories she’d made in this place. Gone.

She sat then. Feet dangling over the black pit. The remains of her life for the last few months. A source of irritation, joy, fear, and hope, all snapped up and torn apart. The inspiration for her fantasies, her dreams. All pulled down and killed alongside the school.

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Her hands no longer shook, she realized. As if not knowing was scarier than seeing.

Footsteps sounded behind her. Boots against the frozen mud. The remaining snow too quiet to crunch. Footfalls came closer with the inevitable descension of impending doom. The walker’s path disturbed the rooks not one bit. They never even reacted to his presence.

“Do you need more time?” Ranvir asked. She wondered at his voice. Emotional, yet so tightly leashed she would never see it.

“Is this common?”

“Yes.”

“How do you stop from feeling like this?”

“You kill it.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

Liar. “I’d like to go home. Rime’s Shadow.” She didn’t notice hear the travel-space open, yet when she turned around it was there. Ranvir already stood inside, waiting for her.

He was not dressed for the weather. Wearing a short-sleeved blouse that billowed in the breeze and a pair of loose thin pants. He looked different now, as if he’d given up attempts to play human.

She’d heard the rumors. Everyone had. The entire city was crawling with word of his fight. According to the Queen, they’d struck a major blow against the Purists. Their tethered tracking their headquarters and take down the Purist’s only triplet master. Yet the public knew, understood to their very core, that it was no coordinated effort that brought low Dhaakir.

The tale spun of the triplet master fighting through all the army could throw at him, achieving a higher state of being only to attract the World Eater’s attention. The great serpent reborn in human flesh. Ealam Althueban. Varumgándr. Ranvir Grayfeather. The Coldfront.

One day, he would call off the flesh-torn who still fought in his name and their army would scatter to the ends of Vednar, opening the gates for explosive human growth. It was said that his eyes saw all. That his perception could not be tricked. That his soul could not be fouled.

It was just words, though. Easy to say, hard to believe. But she’d seen Dovar’s scars when Dhaakir struck him with obsidian. She’d worked on a farm her adolescent life. She’d seen severe injuries before.

Ranvir’s arms were covered in thin slashes. Shallow cuts little more than red marks that seeped sanguine should you pick at them. He was covered in them. Head-to-toe. His ribs on the left were a singular mass of yellow and blue bruises. And she’d seen him face down that demon from the depths, emerging from water too big to be a lake. A pool so large Ranvir had to borrow a Fiyan word to explain it. Sea.

And there was compassion in those eyes. Compassion and far more. On the surface, they were so inhuman, too different. Yet, they were compelling. As if she could discover some truth of the worlds, if she just stared long enough into the violet orbs. Absorb his understanding as his careful eyes took her in to the fullest.

She could tell when Ranvir was looking at her, or if he was just looking. His senses were usually so spread out he almost felt on the edge of distraction. Then he’d snap to her. Attention until she choked on it. There was a physical weight to his stare. Each second peeling away flesh and intention, leaving only the barebone core of her being left.

He was looking at her then. Intentions so focused, she felt as if he could strip down her thoughts. Pick apart each moment, errant thought, and consideration. The intensity of a bird, picking her clean like the rooks on the battlefield. It chilled her to the fucking bone.

Maybe they are right. She swallowed and plodded along. The scene changed into unending black gridded with purple lines. The natural light disappeared, and they were left in his space. He filled the space, a presence beyond the mere fact of bone and blood.

She knew his position intimately, despite not looking at him.

“Are you alright?”

Shiri jerked on the spot. All the suddenness of the rooks, without any of the violence.

His boots were spattered with mud. It seemed incongruous with the moment, the strangeness of their location, the sheer audacity of his presence.

Fingers, rough, strong, and gentle, held her chin. She moved like putty to his delicate touch. Inevitably, she was drawn to him. His touch was careful and irresistible. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Has he changed so much? Or is it just me? “It was my decision.”

“I’m sorry all the same.”

Suddenly, he pulled her in. Squeezing her against his chest, she worried he’d burst her like a bubble. That he might hold her too long and she’d never be able to let go. There was heat in his embrace. Passion in his fingers twisting in the folds of her jacket. And as they descended, she felt the shelter under his wings.

She wiped her face against his shirt, feeling her cheeks wet with further tears.

The piercing hold of his eyes still froze her to the bone, yet underneath the cover of his wings she was protected, against the press of his body she could resist.