Cyn wanted to vomit.

  While she expected that the lodging in Qaya wouldn’t be as comfortable as the dorms Apollon, the air around the makeshift Prism of wood and hay smelled like piss and manure since it was right next to the stables which held ten thousand horses.

  The humidity of Qaya didn’t help either and Cyn felt like the very act of breathing was shortening her life.

  “Welcome, sisters. I am Brother Roy and I must say, it is a delight to be in the presence of ones so pure.” A short, middle-aged man with greying black hair warmly smiled while leading the sisters into the rickety structure wherein two hundred other Mending Sisters were crammed.

  Most of them, unlike Cyn's trio, wore drab dirty gowns made from worn materials or even burlap.

  They openly spoke to each other through dry lips and some could even be seen crying here and there, something which made Cyn’s group frown as they were led into their own private room at the back of the dank wooden building.

  “Please, make yourselves at home and if you need me, I’m usually in the main chamber or in my office.” Roy nodded before leaving the three to themselves.

  Zǎochén closed the door while wrinkling her tanned face with a frown.

  She exchanged annoyed glances with her sisters and Nhanga voiced their thoughts.

  “Pity the unclean and the ignorant. Teach them instead the path towards cleanliness and divinity.”

  Cyn and Zǎochén nodded at their sister’s recitation before sitting on the room’s sole bed which was simply a collection of crates with an old blanket on top.

  The three allowed themselves a moment of silent reflection before leaving the room and making their way to the main chamber where they sat along the U-shaped path.

  They immediately stood out as their clean skin and clothes seemingly made them glow in the dim grey light of the overcast sky that stumbled into the wooden parish.

  The common folk and soldiers all sought to be in their presence but the rule was to keep moving along the path after a Mending Sister attended you.

  One soldier in particular walked up to Cyn’s wooden pedestal where he knelt with widened eyes and a dirty face that was taunt with youth.

  “Sacred is the light, sister.” He greeted and Cyn replied warmly.

  “Sacred indeed.”

  The soldier nodded before narrowing his weary eyes.

  “Tell me, sister… the evil that is said to have arisen… can it be stopped by the hands of us mere men? I-I heard that the Goddess of Light herself spoke to the sisters in Apollon so I was hoping you could illuminate us on just what it is we’re facing.”

  “But of course! Was it not the mortal hands of the first Emperor that brandished the Ruler’s Charge all those ages ago and was it not the hands of every Emperor that followed that allowed the eventuality of your birth?” A man wearing a pure white uniform that was adorned with all manner of medals and patches bellowed as he approached Cyn, skipping the line of people who also wanted to speak to a sister.

  Tailing behind the decorated man with fiery red hair and sun-kissed skin were three elite knights, as shown by the grand circular halos they carried on their backs.

  The first knight wore a suit of full golden armour and brandished a spear that seemed to burn with the fires of the sun itself. Carved into the centre of his chest plate was the crest of the House of the Sun, displaying a proud knight in the centre of the sun itself.

  The second was clad in heavy, slightly dirtied steel. She brandished a great mace and a thick steel shield which bore the crest of house Ardi which held a meaning that was lost on almost all in Mahali. A great tree at the centre of a mystical circle.

  The last among these towering figures did not wear his helmet, revealing his scarred face and heavy brow. His armour was the dirtiest and was edged with rust, the steel whining with his every move. Resting on his shoulder was a steel sword that was as long as most men were tall. His chest bore the mark of Qaya, a thorned spear.

  These were the protectors of their respective realms.

  Called to action by the arrival of a new threat.

  The decorated man moved in front of the soldier who still knelt in front of Cyn and grinned.

  “Does that answer match the words you would have chosen?”

  Cyn gave him no response, facial or otherwise but the grinning man ignored her non-answer and turned to the people behind him.

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  “And as for the evil that has arisen, it is a wretched undead!”

  Gasps and murmurs steadily filled the air.

  “I, the Great General Julian, alongside fifty thousand men from across Mahali, have been chosen to vanquish the wretch and when we do, we will be remembered as the ones who fought their own battles without relying on their Emperor or his regents!”

  Hums of applause took the air along with a few cheers which made Cyn wince a little. Not from doubt but caution.

  “Anyway, I came to personally welcome you to Qaya. Lord Mashi would have come himself but he is currently occupied with all the tedium that comes with hosting an army.” Julian struggled to hide his excitement.

  “With all that said, I look forward to your counsel when the coming battle commences. The scouts we sent out should be back before long and, on that note, I bid you a very good afternoon.” Julian gave Cyn a dignified bow before leaving alongside his entourage of metal suits.

  Cyn then went about fulfilling her duties alongside her sisters for the rest of the day but by the time the sun sunk into the horizon, Cyn was tired of being in the stuffy prism and so she left for a bit, taking in the outside air which was only marginally cooler.

  Marching past the prism which stood opposite the main command tent where Julius and other senior soldiers strategized. The men who trudged past varied in all aspects from age to rank, and gear and some weren’t men at all.

  Some wore worn cotton drabs and held thin spears tipped with the tinniest slivers of steel while others dragged their steel-encased bodies across the mud.

  The elite knights were the most exceptional, standing two heads taller than most thanks to their supernatural amounts of vigour which was granted to them by the Cycle Shards they acquired over long years of service. They all wielded weapons that would have otherwise been impossible to carry for an ordinary man and stood poised as if they were ready to strike at any given moment.

  Cyn found a bench by the Prism’s entrance where she sat with a sigh.

  She closed her eyes and frowned at just how loud life outside Apollon was.

  A droplet then grazed her cheek from above, prompting her eyes to open and they immediately widened upon seeing that what had touched her cheek was blood.

  She looked up and let out a terrified scream as the head of a man suddenly fell by her feet.

  Several more screams and gasps followed hers as heads and various other body parts rained onto the encampment.

  Cyn’s quaking gaze fell to the head at her feet.

  It was encased in a familiar steel helmet.

  One belonging to soldiers from Ardania.

  Several horns were sounded and, in her panic, Cyn rushed back into the Prism where she found a curiously frightened Nhanga and Zǎochén.

  “What happened?”

  “I-I I think the enemy is attacking!” Cyn cried as the sisters around her clung to the walls of the Prism but before any of them could process anything that was happening, several knights barged into the Prism, grabbing a sister each and dragging them out.

  Leading this forceful retrieval was the Elite Knight from Qaya who glared at the scene as it unfolded. His dark bald head was lined with scars and his jaw seemed perpetually clenched.

  One of the knights then grabbed Zǎochén, his eyes rattling with the same fear that welled within the sister he held.

  “Come on! We need healers on the front-“ The knight crashed onto the floor as the knight from Qaya shoved him with his free hand.

  “Not those three. They can stay.” He grunted flatly as the knight stumbled onto his feet.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cyn’s group then watched as almost half of the two hundred sisters were taken.

  Ordered to watch over them was a platoon of soldiers who nervously stood along the U path the sisters had been instructed to sit along as loud but distant explosions shook the air.

  “What in the world happened, man? Why didn’t the scouts say anything?” One soldier whimpered.

  “I heard that they hadn’t returned yet.” Another answered.

  “I saw one of the heads that fell… that was one of them… one of the scouts.”

  The air stiffened after those words and the back of Cyn’s head ached terribly as she experienced more stress in this moment than she had in her entire life.

  “Alright, pipe down! Don’t spook the sisters any further.”

  “Yes, lieutenant!”

  A terrible silence followed.

  No screams, no explosions or even the wind.

  Then the ground shook.

  Something was coming, numerous and heavy.

  The soldiers all raised their spears and their lieutenant his sword as the shaking intensified feeling as though a slow stampede was heading their way.

  Cyn stared out of the Prism’s front door with eyes that were so wide open, they hurt.

  The smell of burnt flesh proceeded their arrival.

  Five beasts of claw and iron.

  They stood twice as tall as most men, stood on thick-hooved legs and were clad in armour that had been darkened by fire. Their heads, resembling those of a goat, were capped with helmets that shadowed their eyes.

  They all wielded weapons that were made from a dull, off-white material. Stones that looked like sharp chunks of stone and clubs that were much the same but less defined.

  The soldiers all rushed to meet the beasts only for them to be cut down like meat to be butchered.

  The sisters all watched as the twenty soldiers who had been told to protect them were mercilessly cleaved apart by beings who expressed no joy or hatred in what they did.

  They were efficient in every move, wasting not a single of their breaths or movements.

  Any attack by the defenders uselessly bounced off the thick plating that covered the beasts and even any that managed to sneak past the amour did little more.

  One of the soldiers tried running away, tossing aside his spear, fear tearing him from any reasoning as he loudly screamed towards one of the windows but before he could reach the open wooden frame, one of the beasts threw its club at him, the weapon firmly lodging itself in the back of his skull.

  With all of the soldiers dead, the beasts turned to the weeping sisters and, at this point, Cyn’s heart was beating so fast, that she felt as though it would give in.

  One of the beasts stepped forward, letting out a grunt as it did.

  It then signalled the others with its right hand and three of its kin grabbed some of the sisters, each carrying two at a time.

  The three left and just as the first raised its hand to signal the last of its kin, something crashed into the Prism from one of the windows.

  It was the Elite Knight from Qaya and, without wasting a moment, he sent forth a torrent of water that forced the two beasts into the wall.

  He then grabbed Cyn and Nhanga before quickly rushing out from where he came.

  “Wait! Zǎochén is still in there!” Cyn cried as the knight ran behind the prism and into the stables where he was hidden by the sheds and smoke that filled the air.

  “WAIT!” Cyn screamed but the knight had no intention of stopping.

  All Cyn could do was watch with eyes that ceaselessly wept, as the Prism grew more distant.