CHAPTER THREE #3
"You're cut off, Greenley," she yelled back, then looked at me, shaking her head in obvious irritation. "Bastard doesn't know when to quit." She continued shaking her head. "And doesn't know how to call a person by her first name." She nodded. "You need something, you call me Heather."
"Understood."
She didn't smile. Didn't need to. Her face was striking enough without the pretense—large eyes that had seen too much, a full mouth set in a line that suggested she wouldn't take crap from anyone. And I believed it.
"Drink or room?" Her voice matched everything else about her: low, direct, no patience for bullshit.
"Drink."
I approached and leaned against the counter.
"Well, what'll you have?" she asked, her accent marking her from the south, even if her swagger was purely northern. She must have been here a long time.
"Ale."
She nodded, returning moments later with a frothy tankard. Her eyes narrowed, taking my measure.
"You must be lost?" Suspicion threaded her words.
"Not lost." I lifted the tankard. The cool metal steadied my hands as the bitter ale washed over my tongue.
"You're no local." Her gaze swept over me with deliberate slowness, lingering on the fine quality of my leather jerkin, the unmarked steel of my sword hilt, and the subtle embroidery threading my cloak's edges.
It was the type of clothing that marked me as someone with coin, someone who didn't belong in a place like this.
"No, I'm not." I leaned closer, my voice dropping. "What's happened here?"
Her expression shifted. Her hand froze mid-polish, cloth suspended as her eyes darted to the other patrons. The room's atmosphere thickened like curdled milk.
Remembering that I currently appeared to be a wealthy young knight, no doubt on my way to Camelot, I also recalled that there was no way this woman, nor anyone from the North, would trust me.
"Magic. Would have destroyed us all if left unchecked."
The ale tasted suddenly sour. "But the king saw to it that all magic users were removed?"
"Aye. It's a land of the dead now," she continued. "Full of ghosts that'll be haunting this place for a long time, I reckon."
"Ghosts?"
She nodded. "Practice magic and you'll find yourself in an unmarked grave."
My stomach plummeted.
Anyone who was magical wasn't just destroyed; they were denied a proper burial. Erased.
"The king’s justice is... thorough." The words tasted like rust.
"Necessary though, isn’t it?" she asked, her eyes sharp, testing my allegiance. Despite the fact that we were both on the same side, I dared not reveal even the slightest indication of it.
"Indeed." I dropped coins on the counter. They rang like a bell tolling a death sentence. "The realm's safety must come first." I glanced toward the window. "I should be on the road before nightfall."
I stood, the woman's gaze trailing me like a knife in my back.
Outside, I untied Shade and mounted quickly, boots hitting the stirrups with urgency. I didn’t look back.
I rode hard, pushing Shade deeper into the heart of Logres, into a land that felt less like a kingdom and more like an endless graveyard stretching beneath a pallid sky. The air seemed to carry the weight of death, thick with unspoken sorrows and the lingering echoes of screams long silenced.
I passed a field where ancient circular stones—once white as fresh snow and humming with natural magic—now stood scorched black as charcoal, their surfaces cracked and weeping dark stains that looked disturbingly like dried blood.
The grass around them had withered to brittle husks that crunched under Shade's hooves, and not even weeds dared to grow in the poisoned earth where Arthur's purge had burned away centuries of power.
A mile further, I came upon what had once been a grove of sacred trees, the massive oaks older than memory itself.
Now it was nothing but a salt field—white crystals stretched endlessly where roots had once run deep, the earth so thoroughly salted that nothing would ever grow there again.
The destruction was methodical, deliberate.
Arthur hadn't just killed the magic here; he'd ensured it could never return.
Another village appeared ahead, and my heart sank as I took in the familiar sight of empty streets and burnt-out shells of homes.
Blackened timbers jutted skyward like accusing fingers, and the few walls still standing were stained with soot and worse things I didn't want to identify.
Windows gaped like dead eyes, and not a single wisp of smoke rose from any chimney.
The silence was absolute, broken only by the mournful creak of a broken shutter swaying in the wind.
And this wasn't the exception—it was the rule.
Village after village bore the same wounds, the same systematic destruction.
Each settlement we passed had been broken and gutted, its heart ripped out.
The pattern was unmistakable: identify the magical, eliminate them, and leave the survivors too terrified to ever practice again.
Even the people we occasionally glimpsed appeared fundamentally different from the folk I remembered.
They moved like shadows, haunted creatures with wide, darting eyes that never settled on anything for too long.
Fear had carved deep lines into faces that should have been youthful, and they flinched at every unexpected sound.
When they saw me approaching—a stranger on horseback—they scattered like startled deer, disappearing into doorways and alleys as if their survival depended on remaining unseen.
Miles from the tavern, the weight of everything I had witnessed finally shattered the careful walls I had built around my emotions.
My composure, so carefully maintained through the day's horror and devastation, crumbled like ancient parchment touched by flame.
A raw cry tore from my throat—a sound that was equal parts furious roar and a wounded animal's keen, echoing across the empty landscape with a violence that surprised me.
The sound seemed to unlock something deep inside my chest, some dam that had been holding back an ocean of grief and rage.
Hot tears streaked down my cheeks in burning rivulets, cutting clean paths through the dust and grime of the road.
My hands trembled where they gripped Shade's reins, and she seemed to sense my distress, slowing her pace without any command from me.
Each sob that wracked my body felt like it might tear me apart from the inside, and I found myself grateful for the absolute solitude of this desolate stretch of road where no one could witness my complete and utter breakdown.
When had I last cried? When had I allowed myself to feel anything at all? I didn't have an answer.
How many more would die under this tyrant's rule? How many innocents would bleed for powers they never asked for—gifts they couldn't control?
Grief twisted into rage.
This wasn't about survival anymore.
This was war.