The screams woke me.
I bolted upright in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs. For a breath, I thought I'd dreamed it, one of those half-waking nightmares that cling to you in the dark. Then the scent hit me: smoke, thick and choking, beneath my door.
Fire.
I was on my feet before my mind caught up, my bare feet slapping against the cold dirt floor. Through the window, orange light pulsed against the night. Not the gentle glow of hearths or lanterns, this was hungry. Violent.
The second scream came, closer this time. A woman's voice. Mistress Cale.
I threw open my door and the world erupted into chaos.
The village square was a writhing nightmare of flame and shadow. Thatched roofs burned like kindling, sending embers swirling into the smoke-choked sky. Dark figures with wings carved through the streets, their armor swallowing the firelight. I didn't recognize their banners, no boar, no hawk, no sigil any traveling merchant had ever described. Just black. Endless black.
"To the woods!" Old Thom roared, shoving children toward the tree line. A claw took him through the chest before the words had fully left his lips.
I froze.
They moved like no soldiers I'd ever seen. Not the ragged bandits who sometimes harassed the outlying farms, nor the king's men with their clanking plate and shouted orders. These warriors flowed through the village like a single living thing, their claws and wings rising and falling in terrible unison.
One of them thundered past me, its rider swinging a flail. The iron ball caught Jeb the tailor square in the face. I watched, numb, as his head snapped back, as his body crumpled like a discarded doll.
Something warm splattered my cheek.
"DOWN!"
A hand yanked me backward just as an arrow hissed through the space where my head had been. I turned to see Mara, her face streaked with soot and tears, dragging me behind the baker's overturned cart.
"Who- " My voice came out a broken rasp. "Who are they?"
Mara's eyes were wide, white all around. "Devil's men," she whispered.
The words meant nothing to me. We were a small village, unimportant. We paid our taxes, tended our fields. What could we have done to earn this?
A new sound cut through the screams—a horn, low and mournful. The attackers paused as one, their heads turning toward the square.
Three figures emerged from the smoke.
Not soldiers. Something... else.
The tallest wore an armorlike cloak that seemed to drink in the light, his face hidden behind a helm wrought in the shape of a screaming demon. At his side stood a woman with hair white as bone, her lips painted black as a corpse's. Between them, a youth with golden eyes surveyed the destruction like a child examining trampled flowers.
"Enough," the woman said, her voice carrying over the crackling flames. "You're being tedious."
As if by some unseen command, the killing stopped. The men dismounted. The villagers still standing—so few, so gods-damned few —were herded into the square like frightened sheep.
I clutched Mara's hand as we were forced to our knees. The dirt beneath us was warm with blood.
The golden-eyed youth crouched before a sobbing child. "Do you know why we're here?" he asked pleasantly.
When the child didn't answer, he sighed and snapped its neck with a casual twist.
A collective wail rose from the villagers. The woman with white hair laughed.
Then the demon-helmed one spoke, his voice like grinding stones:
"The Dark Lord is depressed."
That's when I understood.
This wasn't punishment.
This wasn't war.
This was entertainment.
"Pathetic," he murmured. "Not a single fighter among them. He'll be bored within minutes."
The second, a woman with a braid of white hair, sighed. "At least the fires amuse him."
The third, younger, with a smirk that made my skin crawl, kicked over a basket . "Maybe if we find something strange enough to hold his attention. You know how he gets when the melancholy takes him."
Melancholy.
The word hooked into me.
I had spent years grinding herbs, brewing tonics for sleeplessness, for grief, for the slow ache of despair that settles in the bones. I knew the weight of that word.
And I knew the men and women of my village would die tonight for no reason but to amuse some distant, brooding monster.
I spoke before I could think.
"I can cure it."
My voice rang too loud in the sudden silence.
The amber-eyed man turned. Slowly. The way a wolf turns when it hears a rabbit stir.
"What did you say?"oh
I swallowed. My hands shook, but I forced them still. "His melancholy. I'm the village apothecary. I know the remedies."
A lie. A desperate, reckless lie.
But the white-haired woman stepped closer, her gaze raking over me. "You're lying."
"Test me." I lifted my chin. "Take me to him. If I fail, you can kill me then. But if I succeed…" I glanced at badgers ashen face. "You let them go."
The smirk on the youngest face widened. "Oh, I like this one."
The amber-eyed man studied me for a long, terrible moment. Then he retracted his claws.
"Bind her hands," he said. "We'll see if the Devil finds her as entertaining as you do."
As they dragged me away, I didn't look back.
I couldn't.