Page 5 of The Last Rose of Ashwood

At the edge of the village, near a wagon path leading toward the fields, Roran crouched and pointed to the mud.

Wagon tracks cut deep through the road, then stopped abruptly.

Seren crouched beside them, her cloak dragging in the mud. The grooves were clean, heavy, and impossible. She followed them with her eyes to the precise point where they ceased. Beyond that, smooth wet earth waited undisturbed. The road gave them nothing: no wheel marks pressed into the mud, no hoof prints leading away, no trace to suggest the wagon had turned or gone anywhere beyond that place.

Seren stood, then crouched again because the facts did not improve merely by being inspected twice.

Roran watched her. “I did that too.”

“Did it help?”

“No,” he said.

She rose again, jaw tightening. For one absurd moment, her mind offered the least helpful possibility available: the wagon had simply vanished. It had not moved, burned, or sunk into the mud; it had simply disappeared, as if wagons were known for doing that. Magic did not work that way. At least, it was not supposed to.

Human magic had always felt violent to her. It felt like a spark, a strike, a force imposed upon the world until the world yielded or broke. She had seen battlemages shatter walls during the revolution, watched defensive wards burst like glass under enough pressure. Human magic left evidence because humans liked evidence. Imperial Elven magic had been different from her experience. It had stepped from between the trees as though the forest had been hiding it all along. She had seen Ashwood earthspeakers once bend a battlefield itself.

The memory came unwanted: soldiers screaming as roots tore through frozen ground, stone walls warping like soft clay, trees leaning inward as if listening to commands older than human language.

At the time, she had told herself it was imperial theatrics, myth used as weapon – then the earth had swallowed men alive.

The air in Eastmere did not feel like human magic.

Human magic wanted to be witnessed. It struck, burned, shattered, announced itself in scorch marks and broken stone and bodies arranged around the point of impact. Whatever had moved through Eastmere had left no such confession. It was quieter than that, less interested in being noticed.

Roran’s mouth tightened. Rain gathered along the edge of his hood and fell in slow, steady drops between them. “Three confirmed villages gone,” he said. “Possibly more.”

For a moment, Seren did not move. Then her head turned. “Three?”

The word landed too softly for the anger inside it. Roran looked away, and that was answer enough. The rain seemed louder then, ticking against rooftops, sliding through gutters, whispering over the abandoned road where no footsteps had followed, then vanished out.

“Captain.” It was not a request. It was the voice she used on battlefields when orders had stopped being optional and men who loved her knew better than to make her ask twice.

Roran exhaled, heavy and slow, as if the truth had weight and he had been carrying it badly. “The first was discovered eight days ago. The second four days after that.”

He looked back toward the lantern-bright village, his face drawn tight in the rain. “Eastmere, this morning.”

All the rain in the world seemed to narrow to the cold thread sliding down the side of her face, over her jaw, beneath the collar of her coat. She stared at Roran as if he had spoken in some language she almost understood but could not make herself accept.

Her mind touched the number and recoiled from it.

Eight days had passed.

Not long enough to be forgiven and yet long enough to prove someone had chosen silence.

Her jaw tightened. “Eight days.”

Each word came out low and edged with disbelief, as though saying the number aloud might make it less obscene.

Roran clenched. “Yes.”

Not one frightened report exaggerated by distance. Not one isolated horror dressed up in rumor. Three entire villages swallowed from the map while the Council sat behind polished doors and decided when the matter became inconvenient enough to share.

“And I am hearing this now?” Seren felt something cold and familiar settle behind her ribs, the old battlefield instinct that arrived when she realized someone had sent her into danger with half a map and expected her to survive on loyalty. They had not withheld information because it was unimportant. They had withheld it because whatever was happening in the north had already frightened them, and frightened men in power always became most dangerous when they started deciding who was expendable.

“The Council—” he started to explain.

“No," she stopped it before the poorly crafted excuse could insult them both. Seren rarely raised her voice. A commander did not need volume if people understood consequences. This time the word came quietly enough to be worse.