Ashes of Wolf's Rest

by Luke Thomas

Dear Diary,

The war began not with a thunderous charge, but with a rain of fey fire against the walls of our home.

There was no time for a plan. Liliana was the first through the gate, a silver-and-white blur of righteous fury. The fey-forged steel of her blade, once a gift, was now turned against its own kind. She was magnificent, a storm of divine light that sent the Eladrin reeling, their cruel beauty momentarily twisted by fear. Alistan was at her side a second later, shield raised, his shouts drawing the hobgoblin archers’ fire, his feints creating the space we so desperately needed.

Gael, ever quiet, whispered to the rustling leaves and a shimmering fey spirit, like a wolf made of moonlight, appeared at our side. It tried to weave a charm into the chaos, to coax our enemies into peace, but its magic slid harmlessly off the thick hide of the troll. The brute was intent only on battering down our walls, and seeing Liliana as the greater threat, it turned its tree-trunk of a club upon her. Divine power flared around her like an aura, and she held the line. She held. By the gods, she held.

Then came the music. A satyr with a twin flute began to play, and the melody wormed its way into our minds—a maddeningly joyous tune. We fought it, but I saw Hayley’s foot begin to tap. Her brow furrowed in concentration, but the song was too strong. Soon, she was lost to us, dancing a wild jig in the middle of a battlefield.

With Hayley occupied, the hobgoblins turned their attention to me. Their favorite game, it seems, is "put the arrow in the wizard." A shimmering shield of force deflected the first few, but others found their way through, biting into my arm and leg. I moved to stand back-to-back with Gael, preparing to combine our efforts, when the air beside us shimmered. An Eladrin stepped out of nowhere. Then another. And two more behind us. We were surrounded.

I felt the threads of magic gathering at my fingertips, calling to the earth beneath my feet to rise and fight for us. I felt the rumble begin, but it was drowned out by the sharp, blinding pain of blades sinking into my back. A gurgled breath was all I could manage before the world went black.

My next sensation was the sickly-sweet burn of a healing potion in my throat. I coughed, my eyes flying open to a world of blue-white ice. Hayley. She had erected a fortress of ice around us, her bond with the elemental heart of water saving what was left of us. Through the opaque walls, I could see the battered shapes of my friends, Alistan and Liliana looking particularly grim. Without a word, Gael scaled the slick wall and vanished over the top, a silent promise to bring our frontline back from the brink.

I met my sister's gaze and nodded. I gathered the fire in my palms, a comforting, familiar warmth. At her signal, the wall in front of me dissolved into mist. I unleashed the fireball, a miniature sun that roared across the courtyard. The troll shrieked as it was consumed, but the Summer Eladrin, wreathed in their own innate magic, merely shimmered, frustratingly unharmed by the flames.

Hayley took to the air on her broom, a valkyrie of the wilds. She cast a terrible but familiar spell, pulling the very life force from the soil beneath our foes, their vitality siphoning into the broken bodies of Alistan and Liliana. For a moment, it seemed to turn the tide. But the Eladrin just lifted their bows, and a volley of arrows flew towards the sky. And towards me. I felt a sharp impact in my shoulder, and consciousness slipped away once more.

I awoke to a deep, profound cold. The kind of chill that sinks into your bones on a winter night when you’ve slept with the window open. I forced my eyes open, exhaustion a leaden weight on my entire body. A faint, flickering warmth drew my gaze. It was our keep, a few hundred feet away, engulfed in a roaring inferno. The stone walls glowed cherry-red, and with a groan that sounded like a dying beast, the main tower collapsed into itself, sending a shower of embers into the night sky.

Gael screamed a name—"Dynia!"—and tried to run towards the blaze. It took all of us to hold him back, to keep him from throwing himself into the funeral pyre of our home. We could only stand there, helpless, and watch it all burn. Behind us, Wolf’s Rest was gone. Cinders and smoke where homes had stood just hours before. The bodies of villagers, people we knew, people we swore to protect, lay still in the mud. And in the distance, the Silver City remained dark, its gates steadfastly, cruelly shut. My heart ached with a sudden, sharp terror for Anna, and for Lumiria. Had they escaped?

Gael, his grief channeled into grim purpose, began searching for tracks. He found them at the back of the keep—several sets of footprints leading away, suggesting some had escaped the fire. A sliver of hope in an ocean of despair.

Hayley, bless her, was alive. We managed to get in touch. She had survived the final onslaught and had escorted a group of villagers to safety. We swept the ruins of the village, finding a handful more survivors, all gravely injured. We carried them southwest, to where a makeshift camp of refugees was forming. It was a miserable sight—no food, no supplies, just frightened people huddled in the dark.

But Anna was there. And Elsa, and Rachnar. They were safe. There was, however, no sign of Lumiria. No one had seen her since she was spotted running away during the chaos of the feast. A cold dread settled in my stomach. I found Ileas and begged him to send a magical message, a thread of hope cast into the darkness.

The reply came. Ileas told me it began with a squeal of delight. She was happy we were alive, he relayed, except for Hayley (to which a reply came that the feeling was mutual). She said she would find us soon. I had expected her to survive, but wondered where she had gone, once she thought that I was dead. Had she just moved on? My short life snuffed out early. But one year, or seventy years, it must all seem like an instant to Lumiria.

With the immediate danger passed, necessity took over. Hayley organized a hunting party with Gael, Liliana, and Dadroz. When they returned, they brought food, but also a strange story. They claimed they had wandered into the Lorewood by mistake and stumbled upon the corpse of a giant goose.

As the dust settled, I bent over what remained of my once grand collection of books and tomes. Trying to catalog what was left. So much had been lost. We had survived but barely. Someone or something saved us, hadn’t wished us dead just yet. But any plans we had to retake the city from the Briar Ring seemed impossible now. We had been driven from heart and home. Our allies seemed few in number compared to those of our enemies. But where else could we go, if not to retake our home?

I may no longer be a knight of Keralon, having foresworn my oaths to the Briar Ring at their betrayal of the city and its people. But I will not abandon them to the clutches of the Fey. I promised myself after Liliana, after Anna and all the others, that I would fight back.

— Luke

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Ashes of Wolf's Rest

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