Interlude
It began in the West.
Fires ravaged the forests of the Asterial Mountains, fanned by the summer heat and dry air.
The citizens of Cliffguard and other neighboring towns flocked to curb the destruction, but their attempts were futile.
Homes burned, lives were lost. It finally rained after five days, and the fires ceased their havoc.
No one thought much of it. Wildfires weren’t uncommon this time of year. A campfire gone awry, nothing more.
But then a sinkhole erupted not far from DeVesalis, swallowing an entire village whole. Coincidence, many called it. The natural disasters were horrendous, but unrelated. A bad omen, others deemed it.
Then the rumors spread. There was a lake in the North where swimmers mysteriously vanished. Poltergeists began haunting inns across the kingdom. Women were compelled to throw themselves from bridges, ending otherwise happy lives. Dogs turned on their masters. The dead turned on the living.
No one knew how much was true and how much was exaggerated. King Maelor urged his citizens to remain calm, to repress the fear seeping its way through the kingdom. It was rumored, too, that he knew more than he was letting on.
Amidst the stirring chaos, hardly anyone took note of the merchant murdered in his bedchamber on the night of the summer solstice.
The papers left out how his screams had filled his mansion, how his servants had tried to help him but found the door barricaded.
There was no mention of how, once they finally broke into the bedchamber, they’d found Niall Royce’s body in pieces. How there was no trace of his murderer.
And so Royce’s legacy was overshadowed by a destruction that was only just beginning.