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Verve didn’t think, only sprang forward and grabbed part of the contraption, and together she and who she assumed was Hadiya dragged the ridiculously heavy thing across the space.
“That’s far enough.” Hadiya blew out a breath, then scowled at Verve. Old but angry pink scars covered one cheek and part of their temple, making their scowl seem harsher. “We’re not paying you to move my shop supplies, I hope.”
“You’re welcome,” Verve replied, and bowed a greeting.
Hadiya grunted and looked at Ivet. “This one’s mouthy. I don’t like mouthy.”
“Verve is also quite skilled,” Ivet said, clearly fighting back a smile. “Right, Alem?”
He was silent.
“Mind if I have a look around?” Verve asked Hadiya after Ivet formally introduced everyone.
The barn’s owner waved a hand. “Be my guest. I’d say don’t break anything, but that seems foolish now, considering. Sodding mages,” they added in a mutter, then glanced at Alem. “Present company excepted, of course.”
Verve broke free from the group to examine the barn. Someone, probably Hadiya, had moved the surviving tools to one side of the space, but judging from the charred lumps of wood and tools covered in ash, the fire had devastated most of their belongings. What must have been a cozy loft on the barn’s second level was now about half splintered, crumbling wood.
“What do you think you’ll find in this mess?” Alem asked, approaching Verve.
She skimmed her gloved fingers over the burned edge of an outer wall. Still warm. Only mage-fire could retain such warmth after a few days.
“Particle mages caused this damage,” she said. “One that manipulated fire, and another that shattered the wood. And they were fighting another…” She picked through the rubble until she found a set of distinctive slashes in the fallen remains of an inner wall. “A shape-changer. A… bear, I think. Not a powerful one, though, or there’d be more blood, deeper claw marks.”
“You can tell all that just from looking?” Alem asked.
Surely that wasn’t awe in his voice. Verve lifted her chin. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, he was a bear,” Alem said. “He chased the others through here.”
“Growled something fierce,” Hadiya added. They’d come with Ivet to watch Verve look around. “Woke me up from a dead sleep.”
“You live in the barn loft?” Verve asked.
“No, the house next door,” Hadiya replied. “But I’d fallen asleep at work here that night. Thank Ea, the shiftling’s growls were loud enough to rouse the dead, for if not, I might not have made it out with my viol before the bastards set my beautiful barn ablaze.” The ire died from their voice as they added, “Seen enough sodding mage-fire to last me ten lifetimes.”
Their old scars told a similar story, one Verve knew too well. “Mages killed my family,” she heard herself say, and the others looked at her. “I’ve seen enough of their magic, too. I’ll find the ones who did this, ser, and make them pay.”
“Don’t care about vengeance,” Hadiya muttered. “Just want to live in peace.”
“As do we all,” Ivet added.
Alem cleared his throat. “How’d you know the shape-changer died?” he asked Verve. “We couldn’t find any bodies.”
Verve nodded absently, still searching. The villagers’ regard sat heavily upon her, and she had the odd urge to prove her skill further — without killing anything. No doubt there’d be plenty of that in her future.
She glanced at the claw marks, the charred wall, then stepped past the barn, making her way to the water’s edge, where reeds stood thick and tall. The wind shifted, and carried with it the scent of death. Sure enough, the shiftling’s body lay burned, buried in the reeds where he’d likely dragged himself after the particle mages’ attack. Animals always hid themselves when near their next lives.
“Sweet Mara’s mercy,” Hadiya breathed, peeking over Verve’s shoulder. “That’s the shape-changer?”
“Like I said, he lost the battle.” Verve tugged at one of the dead mage’s arms and examined his hands. Even partly submerged in water, blood had crusted beneath his nails. “But I’ll wager he gave the particle mages something to remember him by.”
She dropped the arm, where it flopped with a splash back into the water, then glanced over at Alem, who stared at the dead mage like he was going to puke. But surely, a healer had seen worse.
Verve rose and dusted off her gloves on her trousers. “Ivet, you said something about a mushroom farm?”
The Sufani woman, too, looked heartsick, but she nodded briskly and gestured with her single hand. “Aye. Follow me.”
A few minutes later, Verve stood in the center of the strangest forest she’d ever seen. Dozens of tree trunks, stacked on each other like log cabin walls, sat in neat rows beneath a canvas canopy. Red and yellow-speckled mushrooms in various states of growth bloomed from each trunk. Another canopy covered wooden shelves that held buckets filled with some sort of peaty material and hundreds of tiny, blue-capped mushrooms. Still more types of fungus stretched out farther, each growing in its own way, no doubt carefully tended by the petite woman named Berel, who stood beside Ivet, wringing her hands.
