Sariel had never seen anything like it. One moment she was standing beside Cody, and the next, he was a little cloud of glittery smoke. Sariel had waved around the strange dust to make sure he hadn’t gone invisible, but her swinging hand failed to make contact with anything.

  She frowned, tapping her foot as she thought through the predicament. People didn’t just turn into clouds of sparkly smoke, but Cody’s hair did remind her of a campfire, and those got smoking when you stamped them out.

  “Sariel, over here!”

  She turned at Cody’s call, scrunching her nose at the empty hall.

  “Cody?” She took a step, tossing her gaze along the open doors. “Thought we were lookin' for Mr. Sungard, not playin' hide n seek with him.”

  She took another step, the air filling with a strange buzz that tickled at her skin. Still, the halls and connecting rooms remained empty. Cody was nowhere to be found.

  She stood next to the last door, arms folded in confusion, and ears alert for the smallest sound that could guide her search. Until a door slammed behind her.

  Without a sense for survival, Sariel rushed the noise, ripping open the door in the hopes that she would see her elusive friend. But Cody was nowhere to be seen beyond the wooden frame, and instead of the plushy bed that had once greeted her, the room now opened to a familiar clearing.

  Ash coated every blade of grass where the mysterious inferno hadn’t scorched nature clean. The skeletal frames of wooden homes stuck up from the ground like grave markers, with very few structures still standing through the blaze. One such being the mud and stone structure that had always sat at the center of Sariel’s village.

  Sariel beheld her home with a mix of confusion and disbelief, closing the door and opening it again to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

  But the familiar sight remained regardless of the amount of times she opened and closed the door. It remained, exactly as she had left it.

  But she certainly hadn’t left it in Bervolt.

  Sariel didn’t like it one bit, and her mind was set on ignoring the room completely. But as she turned to leave and search elsewhere, a familiar voice called her name from somewhere in the ashen forest. It was aged and demanding, calling as if finding her was not a question, but a matter of time.

  The voice was Medila’s.

  Instinctively, she stepped through the door, trying to catch the source of the sound through the charred skeletons of huts. The air grew cold as she left the hearth, smoke tickling her nose as an afterthought to the thick and poisonous clouds the dragon had left.

  “Sariel!”

  She stopped as the call came closer, the sound of crunching steps reaching her ears before an old and shaggy woman stepped out from behind one of the few standing homes.

  Her wild eyes locked onto Sariel, more frenzied than usual as she quickly closed their distance. The woman hobbled like Medila, and scowled like Medila. Sariel tried to picture the woman in her head, scouring the lady that had stopped before her for any off details.

  It was Medila.

  Before she could open her mouth in greeting, Medila snatched her arm, shaking it with a painful squeeze instead of pulling her anywhere. “Look at you girl! And where have you been off? Courting wild boars? Leaving us to starve?!”

  Sariel squeezed her shoulders at the scolding, holding her head low and awaiting a smack or two to the head. “No ma’am.”

  Medila dropped her arm with a scoff. “You’re not worth the energy. Useless girl.”

  She sounded just like Medila too. Sariel had gotten so accustomed to Maddison and Cody that the rude remarks had taken her by surprise.

  But that was how Medila always was.

  “Looks like you got yer head up a horse’s arse. What’s gotten into you girl?”

  She looked around the empty village, hugging her arms tight. Hoping to see a living ember somewhere. Or a hulking mercenary. “Have you seen Cody anywhere? Or maybe Maddison?”

  “Who?” Medila snarled, waving her hand dismissively before Sariel could give a reply. “No time for nonsense, I ought to show you what your little stunt did.”

  Sariel paused as Medila turned, replaying the woman’s face in her mind. She had been focused on checking for all the little nicks and wrinkles her boss had, but a detail had jumped out from between her flapping lips.

  Teeth. They were yellow and a little bit crooked. But like little yellow ducklings all following their mother, they were all accounted for. Not a gap to be seen.

  Sariel’s eyes narrowed at the woman. “My, yer teeth look nice ma’am.”

  “Get yer head right girl. Follow me.”

  Sariel frowned. Perhaps she had looked at it the wrong way. She eyed the woman’s back, searching every rag and stitch in her shawl of a shirt for an outlier. When she came out empty-handed, her gaze dropped to her feet, and Sariel had to hold in a small gasp at what she saw.

  Shoes.

  A little more beaten and stained than Maddison’s, but luxurious to the foot wraps her villagers always used. Sariel wiggled her toes, still gleeful at the gift Maddison had given her.

  “My oh my, nice shoes you have there Medila.”

  She cocked her head over her shoulder with a sneering growl. “Took em off a body, wasn’t usin' em.”

  Sariel hummed in thought. That was a Medila thing to do.

  The problem to Sariel was that shoes didn’t grow on trees, and her old boss certainly wasn’t wearing Corian’s clunky metal boots.

  To add to the problem, her old boss Medila was missing almost half her teeth, it made her voice slurp between the holes if she spoke too fast.

  And most importantly, the biggest problem of all. All Medila ever let Sariel call her was “Ma’am.” Not ‘Mother’, not ‘Mom’, and certainly not ‘Medila.’ Unless Sariel wanted proper manners smacked back into her.

  She slowed her steps and then stopped, the woman that looked like Medila obliviously continuing her walk. Sariel hastily ran her fingers through the dirt, feeling a sizeable rock brush her nails.

  She picked it up.

  “Medila, wanna play a game?”

  The woman stopped, eyebrow cocked with intrigue at the invite. “A game?" She quickly shook off the interest in her eyes, hardening her face back into a scowl. "Look around you girl! What could you possibly play?”

  Sariel pointed at her, her heart swelling with excitement. She had always dreamed of doing what she was about to do. Sucking in a deep breath, her holler rang across the clearing and deep into the dark trees that surrounded them. “Witch!”

  Not clueing in, the woman turned to look for whatever witch Sariel was pointing at. Blind to the stone that sailed perfectly through the air and struck her on the backside of the head.

  She let out a cry of pain, some youth leaking from her voice before she corrected her tone back to a dry boom. “What are you-“

  Another stone cut her off as it struck her nose, sending the woman stumbling back in shock. Sariel had been unnaturally good at Stone the Witch. She could hit a runner from a couple of yards away with deadly accuracy. It was her assumption that her friend had always made her the witch when they played because of it, but whether or not that was the whole truth, was something Sariel had not thought long and hard about.

  “You little skatlicking feral rat.” The woman hissed, her act completely falling as she clutched her nose in pain. “Let people finish what they’re saying.”

  “See that there ma’am? Medila woulda caught that. Fast as a cricket, nothing gets past her.”

  “I don’t care what that shriveled husk would have caught!” She boomed back, her tone mimicking the woman who had spoken through the walls. Her fury quickly stilled as she drove a glare into Sariel, some of the wrinkles on her face fading as her lips twitched into a smirk. “Do you know why?”

  “Don’t work for her?” Sariel gasped, holding her mouth with a pitiful look. “Or she fired ya. So sorry ma’am, real awful if that’s the case.”

  Her smile faltered, but not enough to spur her rage again. With a deep sigh, she fixed herself, straightening her hunched figure and turning away from Sariel. “Follow me. I’ll show you where the real Medila is.”

  “Don’t reckon she’s here. Took me five days to get to Bervolt.” Sariel replied, a hint of sorrow clinging to her ankles and slowing her walk. “Wish you were Medila though.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The woman stopped, not turning as she pulled her ragged hood up and over her head. “Oh? Guilt?”

  “Little bit. Wanted to let her know I quit,” Sariel said, crouching down to sort through the soot for another sizable stone.

  “It’s funny.” The woman spoke, hiding her relief when she pulled Sariel’s attention from her quest. “What a coincidence it is that the warlock you travel with loves fire so very much.”

  “What’s a coincidence, ma’am?”

  “That your village burned down, and there’s a fire sprite following you around.”

  “Cody’s got a name,” Sariel replied, blind to just how sassy her choice of phrasing was. She found a couple of weighty stones, cradling them in her palm like a delicate stack of chicken eggs. “And it definitely wasn’t him ma’am.”

  “And how can you be so sure? This place is a shared memory. I saw this village in his mind. In Maddison’s mind… and now in yours.”

  “Sure as they come ma’am. Seen Cody shoot a good amount of fire, hasn’t caught nothing on fire that he didn’t want to.”

  “And you think it burned down because one irresponsible villager dropped a torch?”

  “Grass fire season ma’am.”

  Her voice flattened to disappointment as she turned her head to Sariel, the patchwork hood covering most of her face. The only clear feature was her dark red lips, turned down in a frown as she motioned at their surroundings. “You think a grass fire did this? Just… avoided all the trees?”

  Sariel nodded with a smile, readying her next rock. “Grass fire ma’am, not a forest fire.”

  The woman let out a deep sigh, switching her tactics once again. “You know what? Maybe it was a grass fire…”

  Sariel hurled a rock as soon as she turned away, but as the stone struck the hood it went straight through it, the entire bundle of fabric collapsing to the ground. Sariel readied her next stone, looking around the huts and trees for where the woman had run off to so quickly.

  “Still, it’s strange…”

  Sariel jumped as the voice tickled her ear, its tone warping with the new skin it had chosen. It circled her as the bulky mercenary, but it was easy for Sariel to tell this Maddison was fake too. Maddison would have stunk from this distance, but the cloak this one wore was wafting the fresh scent of flowers in her direction.

  She hurled another rock, but with the creature’s eyes on the attack, catching the projectile was easy.

  The creature bounced the rock in its palm with a wry grin. “It’s strange that you’re not even remotely sad that your friends and family were burned alive.”

  Sariel took a step back, and the creature, one step forward.

  Its body warped and shrank, the beaten leather armour melting into vibrant red robes. Again the transformation was uncanny. But the smile it wore was far too devious for Cody’s soft features

  “That they died screaming in agony because some pigskat little retch of a girl decided to stand up to a Hero.”

  Sariel paused, her gaze wandering through the ash and burnt huts. The layer of grey was completely undisturbed, except where Sariel and the creature had walked. And it was empty aside from them. If anyone had died, she would have seen it.

  It was just her and Maddison. Her village was empty.

  They had gone to collect supplies. To rebuild.

  She moved her confusion to the woman wearing Cody’s skin, who now flaunted a twisted smirk.

  “Oh, that’s right. I remember… the mercenary never showed you.”

  Sariel backed up until she felt a wooden wall press her back. “Well, Maddison is none too observant ma’am. If it’s not somethin’ to go stabbing he doesn’t pay much attention to it.”

  The creature warped again, taking back the hooded woman’s form. Even facing her, only her lips were visible, the rest of her face obscured by the beaked point to the fabric covering her face. Sariel wondered how she could see her surroundings, but she seemed to navigate the terrain with ease as she passed Sariel, drifting through the door next to her that had been left wide open.

  Sariel readied another rock, poising to deliver her next strike when the creature came back out. But instead, her rich voice thrummed through the air, a nimble hand with pointed nails coming into view to beckon her inside. “Well? Don’t you want to see what Maddison didn’t show you?”

  Sariel glared at the hand, curiousity pulling her to follow, but caution rooting her to the spot. She could feel the crossbow strapped to her back. There was only one shot left, but that was one shot more than the unarmed woman. From what little Sariel had seen of her forearms, she was confident she could beat her in a wrestle too. The height advantage was on the woman’s side, but half a foot didn’t matter in tackling a midsection.

  And so, curiousity won the tug of war. She readied her next stone and entered the ruins of the town hall. In the dim space, she could not see where the woman had gone. Stray beams of sunlight lit parts of the floor, especially near the center where a wide hole had eaten through the roof, shining upon the packed clay that had acted as flooring. It was blackened and cracked by the blaze, giving Sariel’s steps a distinct crunch as she walked.

  The few barrels and boxes that they often stored food and spare supplies in were either shattered to pieces or used to feed the blaze. The only partial survivors being two barrels they used for freshwater that had cracked at the bottom to leak their contents toward the center of the space.

  Where something else sat.

  They did not look like the people she grew up with. But then again, what did the flames leave to recognise? Bracelets and keepsakes were woven or wooden, their clothes were linen and would have burnt as quickly as their hair.

  But she knew them. They had seen homes burn before, faced illnesses, and dealt with difficult harvests. Teamwork was an instinct in a time of crisis. They would not have huddled in a pile while the flames blazed around them. They would have run, helped each other to get through the wall of flames to safety. But instead, the blackened bodies were huddled as one.

  As though the fire came without warning, and stole their freedom to flee.

  She gazed at the scorched ceiling, her mind pulling at theories that could explain it. For Sariel, it was fairly obvious what was left to blame. She had just seen a creature that could spread flames so fast running did very little.

  “Now, I wonder what these could be.” A new voice mused, the chainmail it wore clinking with each playful step. She knew the new voice before she turned to face it. The way it put a knot in her stomach. Medila would spur a similar feeling with her outbursts when Sariel would mess up multiple chores. But it was nowhere near as strong as the knot of seeing Corian carving up Morris’ corpse.

  Sariel took a few quick steps, kicking up the thin puddles of water as she tried to gain some distance. When she reached the first broken barrel, she swiveled on her heel, dropping the rocks cradled in her arms and reaching for the crossbow strapped to her back.

  She readied her aim, thankful that the creature had stayed on the other side of the room close to the burnt pile. It gave her and the weapon a devious smile.

  Of all the skins it had worn before her, this one fit it best.

  “Oh… this one?” The creature admired the glimmering gauntlets it wore, running its fingers through its golden hair with a laugh. “You’re scared of this one!”

  Sariel lined the shot, pressing the trigger with a dry click. It was only then, that she realized the arrow she had loaded was missing.

  The creature eyed the weapon, snorting at the confusion on Sariel’s face as she looked around for her last arrow. It did not close their distance as she searched, grabbing a round and burnt chunk from the pile and bouncing it between its hands like a ball. “How many villagers were there? Did you want to count them together?”

  Sariel crouched low, sliding the crossbow back over her shoulder and running her fingers through the puddle at her feet for one of the stones she had dropped. But the water seemed to guide her hand elsewhere, her hand brushing a thick splinter of wood that laid amongst the stones.

  She wrapped her hand around it, watching the creature wearing Corian’s skin approach.

  “You know, if someone burned me alive I would try my best to give them a smile.” It mused, turning the burnt chunk in its hands until it found what it was looking for. It held the object for Sariel to see, the burnt mass barely resembling a screaming face. “To make sure that I can still live in the nightmares of all who gaze upon me. I wonder who did this…” It motioned to itself, its eyes gleaming with an animalistic shine. “Was it this one?”

  Sariel rose halfway, careful to keep the stake hidden behind her back. “Dragon in Bervolt did it.”

  Its face scrunched at the conclusion, the disappointment heavy as a stone in its voice. “No. It didn't.” It held her blank stare. “I'll give you that one for free.”

  Sariel squinted at them. “You made more sense when you were rhyming with my friend Cody, ma’am.”

  It stopped, processing Sariel for longer than it would have liked. The girl was daft. So dense she made rocks look like clouds. There was no way this wasn’t a play at something else.

  It eyed her hidden hand. A rock would do little against the armour it now wore, Sariel had imagined a fear she could hardly fair against. Unless this was all an act from the strange girl.

  It narrowed its eyes. “Do you think this is funny?”

  Sariel’s brow dipped. “You haven’t said anything funny ma’am.”

  “What are you scheming?”

  “Thought you were scheming ma’am.”

  “Stop calling me ma’am!”

  Sariel paused, sizing the creature up in Corian’s body, her lips pursed in ponderment. “Sir…?”

  “It’s Katryna!” She spat, her haggard rage stilling with the realization of what she had just done. “Or… not that. Not that one!”

  “Katryna’s a nice name,” Sariel replied, her body tensing as Katryna drew the sword at her waist, closing in on her. But as her foot met the tip of the puddle Sariel crouched in, it caught a glimpse of its disturbed reflection.

  It stopped in its tracks, staring at the puddle while it stilled. In the bits of sunlight that peeled through the scorched roof, Sariel could see the way the creature's face contorted. It felt its cheek, eyes darting around as its panic seemed to rise. Its form had been molded by Sariel, and it had not seen the skin it had donned. But it seemed to know the man it saw in its reflection.

  The shock stilled to rage as it locked onto Sariel, its voice sharpened to a hiss. “Where did you see this one?”

  “Corian…? In the village here, accidentally killed him.”

  The sword twisted as it tightened its grip on the hilt. “Accidentally? How?”

  Sariel made her move, whipping her arm out in a motion to throw.

  The creature raised its arm to block a stone, a reaction Sariel had hoped to see. Larger creatures never expected to be rushed head-on, which always gave her a few seconds to flee or take advantage of another option.

  She leapt forwards, ducking past the creature to slip around it and face its exposed back. To its detriment, the creature had copied Corian’s armour perfectly. Where stones would not work against metal, she knew a spot that sharp objects did perfectly fine against.

  It could barely react as she rose to meet it, the stake of wood gripped firmly in her hand. It was all a reflection of the night that had changed her life forever.

  Only this time, as she thrusted the splinter of wood with all her might, she knew she would not regret this.

  She felt the wooden stake slide in perfectly between its armour. The same spot where she had driven the dagger into Corian’s back. The creature tensed, a cut gasp escaping its throat as it stumbled forward.

  She watched it falter, giving it a few feet in case it had the energy for a last-minute strike. “Like that.”

  The creature let out a light scoff as it fell to its knees, catching itself before it tumbled face-first into the puddle. The armour it wore seemed to ooze off its body, taking skin, muscle, and bone with it as it melted into an inky black mass on the floor. Soon, everything around Sariel melted in a similar fashion, peeling and dripping like hot wax to reveal the hall she had once stood in.

  With the last of its whittling strength, the mass of black that was once Corian turned its head, faint holes moving where its eyes and mouth had once been.

  “If you’re telling the truth. I will make sure your death is the furthest thing from peaceful.”

  The last of the mass collapsed, dispersing across the floor and crawling into the cracks and corners of the hall until all that sat at Sariel’s feet was an upturned spider, the blueish creature no larger than her thumbnail.