…Fer. Wild and charming. A shame really, sihe animal in her is so deadly yet so easily sways soft hearts and dulls the cautious mind. Yet the beast hidden with her heart forced her away from the order of the White Pantheon’s Coalition. I sometimes think what Arascus pns to do with her? Does he actually believe he civilize Beasthood?

  Neneria, a Goddess whose uneagerness is mistaken for hesitation. Almost slothful, with little drive to do anything. After all, Death is a certainty for us all in the end. Apolitical and not ideological in any fashion. In the past, she would visit graveyards and battlefields to send souls off. Cold, but very tender. Even Helenna is baffled at how it ossible that after ages of being an observer, undeg death finally chose a side…

  - Excerpt from the secrets texts in the White Pantheon’s closed library. Written by Goddess Alsaria, of Light: ‘My thoughts on the Daughter-Goddesses.’

  Essa’s heart had sunk when she heard the news upourning to Arcadia. It had plunged even deeper as she made her way back, the flight was short. It was only a few hours with her usual speed, today it had takehan an hour. Her mind desded into the cold depths of worry and dread as the wi into her.

  The rising Sun over Arcadia did nothing to warm her up. When she saw what happeo her kingdom, she realised that no matter what she could have thought of, it didn’t go far enough. That cold o spat her out into a howling, blinding blizzard.

  Arcadia tre was destroyed. There was no other way to say it. Essa hovered in the air in the blue dress as her people worked underh. Several of the fields had been verted to field-hospitals. Tents had been put up, yet people still y on stretchers on the grass besides them. Burns and bullet-wounds, missing and broken limbs, faces and bodies covered in bandages. Essa could only imagine what the inside of those tents looked like.

  Several of the gardens had been burned down. Noble, tury-old trees had been turo ash. Mages were w to clear the ash arees that had no ce at being healed with floromancy. And then the dorms. The floromancer quarters had been reduced to rubble. Several mages were w on evacuations as others held up stones and vio keep the structure ihe pyromancer quarters had lost half the structure, the half that still stood had was being explored by small teams that were pulling students out.

  The aeromancer’s building was charred. Two more homes of learnings o be cleared. The hydromancer’s structured had colpsed. Almost every strand of green grass had been painted with grey ash or crimson blood. Essa’s skies travelled north. Uncleared corpses still y on the grass, her eyes found a beastman ying dead on the ground.

  Essa’s fist curled in rage. Fer should have been put down millennia ago, she was a wild animal, not fit for inhabitation of this world. A beast whose capacity on massacre depended on her mood was a walking disaster. Essa started to hover north as she travelled to her favourite area of Arcadia. Her Divine Gardens, that she maintained personally. More blood, more of her people torn apart. Fer’s work, that much was obvious. No other creature killed in such a way, even pull bullmen smmed and crushed, only she would leave clear holes is as she grabbed and tore at hearts.

  And through the northern woods, reduced to ash entirely. There was no point to even try and save these trees, several had colpsed already. More mages y dead here, this wasn’t Fer’s work although Essa still reised the wound pattern. Muskets had been ied in the Great War, one of Alsaria’s greatest achievements had been that she wiped that on from existence.

  And now, seeing people with small holes in their chests. With heads torn open and the insides spttered on the ground. Muskets had returned, and it was obvious these weren’t the primitive guns of the past. Essa sighed as her eyes travelled further. Beastmen on the ground, dead and torn apart by magic. At least her mages put up a fight.

  And then… Essa felt herself pluo the cold ice of an endless abyss. Her eyes travelled to the Divine Library. What remained of the Divine Library.

  Anassa’s prison had been cracked open. And it had been cracked open by sorcery. The fragrance of that cursed magic still littered the pce, and there was nothing in the world that would make such cuts. Essa came close as she ied the damage. Stones animated by magic moved out of her way as she came to the tral tower were Anassa had bee imprisoned.

  Fer. It was obvious from the damage the sentinels dispyed. d tooth marks littered the hard metal. Some maes had been ripped apart, others torheosius’ magical maery within their bodies strewhe ground. And Anassa. Oinel had been crushed into a perfect ball, Essa sed her crystals. Some had been cracked, others had signs of overloading.

  Anassa survived then. Anassa survived and was free. And the ck of Fer’s essenywhere meant that she also was taken. With treacherous Kavaa in Arika, Fer would be up and walking soon no matter how much damage she had sustained. Essa took a deep breath as she wondered on what to do.

  Arcadia had never been attacked previously, not even in the Great War had it sustained such damage. Even Arascus and all his mad hubris had not tried to attack the try of mages. It was… It was a first. That was certain. And now Anassa had been freed.

  Sorcery would spring back up then. And if once agaiered the world, the mages of nowadays would not be ready for it. Essa turned back from the Divine Library as she slowly hovered back to the tre. Past those corpses, she silently blessed and thanked and pleaded for fiveness with each of those souls.

  Her mages would e to her. People were already beginning to turn their heads, a few raised shields. That was no worry, Essa expected them to. They had just had to suffer through Of Beasthood and Of Sorcery. The Goddess spotted a teacher she knew. Dominic Whitaker, an old fellow, bald and with a huge beard. His back crooked, his staff used as a e to support himself with. Head of Hydromancy, one of the few people who had tact to her.

  Dominic was w his magic to stem bleeding, holding water around cuts and holes and broken arteries to create makeshift passages for blood to flow in until those specialized in healing could e to fix the wounds. Essa’s staff appeared in her hand, a long piece of pale wood, taller than her, with a white diamoled in a at the top. She effortlessly took over the man as people realised it was her and dropped their shields. A few bowed, ave sighs of reliefs, several exploded into tears.

  “What happened?” Essa said softly as her shoes touched the ground. This had been a park whe saw it, now it was dirt that had been cleared of ash. Dominic had been keeping two hundred souls alive, Essa sewed the magical threads together as she started to slowly heal them. Not as powerful as Kavaa’s mind-rending healing, far slower, but it could be dohout inflig the pain Kavaa always carried. Dominic bowed before responding.

  “It is good to see you Goddess.” He spoke slowly, unsure of himself. “I…” He wobbled on his staff, dark rings were under his eyes.

  “Sit.” Essa spoke softly. “I am here now. The nightmare is over.” It wasn’t, Essa had been in enough battles to know the nightmare really only started once you started ting the dead. But the man o hear something good. “You did a good job holding these alive, sit a, I hold them.” Essa expanded her magic, her staff started to glhter as she forced the other hydromancers nearby out. A thousand, two hundred ay-three people y on the ground, two hundred had died already. Essa’s magic started to heal them all, she turned around to speak tes.

  A crowd had formed already, people colpsed onto tears, a few fainted of exhaustion ohey realised their Goddess had e. “You all did well, I will take over this group, heal the others, those you ot leave for me.” She repeated herself twice, her voice soft. It was ohing to shout at stubborn Maisara and Fortia, she could n herself to be angry at these mages. They were purposefully not trained in bat arts, the fact Arcadia still had people alive, the fact they had mao sy at least a few of the beastmen was a show of tenacity in itself.

  The responsibility of these deaths sat with her. Her alohey should have been prepared to face what was happening. She would personally visit eae of the sin students to beg apologies from the families that had lost loved ones.

  Essa turned bainic, he was already on the ground, eyes closed and breathing heavily. That gaff topped off with a blue sapphire across his knees. “Dominic, hold yourself together, you sleep ter, what happened?” The man nodded and winced. Essa sed him with her own magic. Two ribs where shattered. That expi. “Don’t move.” Essa said as she started healing him. It was slow, all she could lify natural regeion, not heal by force as Kavaa, but it was enough. The man sighed after a few moments. “You shouldn’t move.” Essa said. “But tell me.”

  “Last night, some hours after you took the peacekeeping enforcers.” The man sighed and shook his head. The aged man, wrinkled and dirty, looked up at Essa with the dim eyes of a pleading child. “Fer came first. Then her beastmen. They attacked with fire and with… I don’t know what.” He sighed again. “An object they would point, it would explode, and then someone would drop dead. It wasn’t magic, we thought it was at the start, but it wasn’t.”

  Muskets defihen. Essa sighed. So new csses would have to be re-instated. She closed her eyes as her mind travelled back to her memories of peaceful Arcadia. A pce e fes, too powerful to live in pure harmony with the mundane folk. That was an Arcadia gone. Not to return until Arascus was dead.

  She silently cursed herself that she did not massacre everyone in Nanbasa back then. The nation that stands? She looked around at the wounded around her. A few were starting to rise from the darkened dirt. A building in the distaarted to lean, vines and trees and pilrs of stone swiftly shot out of the ground to catd support it from toppliirely. A few people started flying out of the balies, carrying wounded with them. Essa took a sigh. Kirinyaa had stood, and Arcadia had fallen on the same night.

  She looked gave a final look at Dominic as the man slowly leaned from side to side, then looked to another a colle of students. She was about to wave them over, but something stopped her. No, she could not act out of rash a. There was damage to be fixed first. Dominic was in no state to take orders either. “Sleep Dominic, you’ll feel better when you’re healed.”

  Essa stepped away as she lifted into the air, the magical healing here could be tied off ao operate on its own. There were more people to save, there were dead to t, there were meetings to make. Arcadia had to awake from this nightmare before she got her mages moving.

  Arcadia was strong. Mages had once shackled the world with their power. It was only by the graces of Alsaria and Essa that they found such a perfect system to keep send that dragon of magic asleep. To isote it from the rest of the world. Anassa and her sorceries were like that too, a dragon. A dragon to be imprisoned and captured and fotten. To disappear from the world and leave Arda in peace. The world did not magic.

  Essa looked at another field, filled with students lying on their backs. Healers were operating here, croug over bodies missing limbs and with their stomachs torn open. With burns that had melted flesh to reveal bone. Essa uncurled her trembling hands arouaff and got to healing. With each person that awoke, she saw the fear and the sadness overwhelm them. They broke into tears, they screamed out, they stood up and they ran off. And then she saw those who awoke in shock. With that little bit of humanity that was impossible to sy, that little of bit of humanity that gave Arcadia its entire purpose: Anger. A righteous anger, a call to destru aation. That little bit of humanity that Maisara thought she could kill. That little bit Essa always called beast within.

  But that was not true either. The mundane were beasts. They could sh out and kill one or two in anger like a r wolf. The best of humanity had prowling tigers or furious bears within them. Mages though, they were no mere animals. Arascus should have not awoken the sleeping dragons.