Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Oaklin’s hands glowed like the midsummer bonfire on the rungs of the ladder.
“Oaklin, wait, please!” Lior shouted from the rooftop.
Split-second choice: Let Lior see, or jump?
Oaklin didn’t even look to see how far it was before they let go. They crumpled to the ground on impact, just managing to get their glowing hands underneath them before Lior’s head popped out over the roof.
“Gods above, are you okay, Oaklin? I’m coming down—”
“NO!” Oaklin shouted back, rolling their hands up inside their tunic hem and scrambling to their feet.
Go, run, hide, anything—
It was an awkward way to run, but they ran.
“Oaklin, wait, please—”
They outran Lior’s calls and dove into the stream of people fleeing the square, ducking their head out of view. A quick glance over their shoulder showed a crowd roiling in the center of the village with the Inquisitor at the center, sword held aloft.
“THE THREE ABOVE WILL SEE YOU JUDGED AND PUNISHED!” the magically amplified voice boomed, and Oaklin cried out as if physically struck, their cry fortunately swallowed up in the answering shouts of the crowd around them.
The same cry echoed in their mind, heard a dozen times at the tips of a dozen swords…
just before those swords fell to the ground, the charred hand of their former owner limp on the hilt at the ravage of Oaklin’s fireball.
The smoky air clawed at the back of Oaklin’s throat in memory and in present both as the crowd around them coughed and screamed.
Someone slammed into their side as they sprinted past, and then a hand wrapped around their other elbow and yanked them out of the flow of bodies, nearly freeing their glowing hand from its hiding place in the process.
Grer. He trotted along beside Oaklin, slower than the rest, glancing frequently over his shoulder.
“Oaklin, that’s you, right?” he asked, squinting in the haze and darkness.
“I’m sorry, Grer, I gotta go,” they called back, speeding once again as they wrapped their hands even tighter in the bottom of their tunic.
“But we could really use your magic to—”
To what, Oaklin would never know, because they would not be stopping under any circumstances. Ever again, possibly. Grer fell behind as, from the center of the village, the shouts continued from the folk who had remained.
“No one wants you here!” one voice yelled above the rest.
“Get out of our village, you filthy—”
The rest was swallowed up in the chorus of support from the roaring crowd, but the meaning was loud and clear.
Someone else in Mossley’s Rest had been a cultist, and they were no longer welcome.
Oaklin was no longer welcome.
The edges of Oaklin’s vision went fuzzy and ragged, broken through with black lightning, as the Inquisitor’s booming voice morphed into something else altogether.
“FOLLOWERS, TO ME!”
Oaklin’s glowing hands flew automatically to clutch the sides of their head, the splitting pain like a hammer strike to the skull.
Did anyone see?
Was anyone even around?
Where did they—
“KILL THEM!”
Oaklin cried out, their knees hitting the dirt.
“BURN THEM!”
Oaklin fell, slamming their forehead into their own front door, the pain barely registering.
When had they gotten home?
Where were all the people?
Had anyone seen?
Did everyone know?
“Get out of our village, you filthy—”
Oaklin dragged themself into the house, shaking with racking sobs, and curled into a ball on the floor in front of the pale blue tiles of the hearth. Granny appeared at some point, quietly sitting on the stool beside them, but even her sharp tone couldn’t break through.
Because Oaklin couldn’t remember the last hour. They had a vast, gaping, all too familiar void in time. Their hands glowed a bloody red. Their healing mind was in tatters once again, just functional enough to replay the shouts from the square.
“No one wants you here!”
Oaklin was no longer welcome in Mossley’s Rest, and the pain of that overwhelmed all the rest.
Oaklin sobbed on the floor until the void took them once again.
Darkness.
And then nothing.