Several years ago. . .

  “Do not come out, not for anything,” Ma said as she lowered Nora beneath the floor boards of their house. The crawl space was little more than enough room for Nora and her wooden doll to fit, not even half the depth needed for someone like Ma to join.

  Nora cried, “But Ma—.”

  Her sharp eyes cut off Nora’s words. Ma brushed her hair back from her forehead and said, “I love you, sweetling. Ser Godrick will come for you. The Celestials will protect you.”

  Nora trembled. She dared not let go of her mother.

  Outside were all sorts of terrible noises. Bells, screaming, and the squelching of some terrible acts.

  Nora tightened her grip on Ma. Then a man skidded through an open doorway.

  Ma pushed Nora down and dropped the floor boards to cover the hole.

  Nora’s heart rampaged in her chest, and her body froze. She could see the barest glimpse through the cracks of the floor.

  Ma slipped out a knife from under her apron and pointed it.

  “It’s me!” the man said. It was Pa.

  Ma let out a big exhale. “Help me block the doors!”

  They flipped over a dining room table, sending pots crashing across the floor, and slid it up against the door.

  Nora couldn’t bear to stay below the floorboards. Being there alone was far too dreadful. But she did as she had been told.

  Pa tugged Ma back, “Come on, we need to get m—”

  A great green fire blasted through the door, engulfing him in terrible flame.

  Nora ceased to feel her own existence as the horror played before her. She could not close her eyes. She could not block out the evil. She could not be spared its stain upon her mind.

  Pa screamed for all but a few seconds before he dropped to his knees and collapsed.

  Ma too had been caught by the flame, her forearm wrapped by its searing fingers. She dropped to the ground and smothered it, muttering prayers as she did.

  Then a figure stepped through the door, of blackened robes and a featureless stare. The fire bowed to them as they intruded.

  Ma scrambled for the knife that she had dropped in the explosion, but the figure made the barest flick of a wrist, and blood sprayed from Ma’s neck. She grasped at the wound, gurgling, writhing as her lifeblood spilled across the floorboards and dripped upon Nora’s face with hot finality.

  “Now, rise. . .” the figure said, reaching out their shadowy hands.

  Ethereal blue smoke swept across Ma and Pa’s bodies and filled their nostrils and mouths. Their eyes glowed with the wicked magic, and their bodies twitched too and fro. Their heads snapped forward, and wisps of silvery light evaporated from their chests—taken up into the heavens.

  All Nora could do was witness as her parents were defiled.

  Then came a divine burst of radiant energy that tore through the figure’s back and out their chest.

  They screamed a ghastly noise as their dark form was incinerated, along with the corrupt magic that had filled Ma and Pa’s bodies.

  Nora’s parents collapsed lifelessly.

  In the aftermath of the explosion, there was a sort of calm, as if everything in the world had frozen.

  Then a man stepped through the door, clad in heavy plate armor and wielding a shining sword. His feet clanked against the floor as he entered.

  “No. . .” he muttered. Then he reached down to the floorboards that hid Nora.

  She shielded her face, shrinking as small as she could, afraid of what new entity had entered her home.

  Though, it was not harm that came to her, but instead heavy hands that scooped her out of the hidden place and carried her away from the nightmare. It had been a paladin who had come to save her, Ser Godrick, as promised. He held her tight. “It is finished, little one. You are safe now.”

  . . . The present.

  Nora clutched her borrowed shard to her chest and stared into Atan’s conflicted eyes. She recalled the past. She thought upon the screams, and smells of burning flesh, and the feeling of Ma’s hot blood upon her brow. She pictured this new necromancer who had killed her uncle, who had promised to save him and did naught. She felt the tug of vengeance within her, mixed with regret now for what she had done to the chapel and those others who rested there. They were lost because of her actions.

  No. Not lost. Freed. Their souls were free. Life was not a place for them any longer. Death was the reward for a long sentence of suffering, and it was in death that everlasting freedom came. It was selfish how so many people had trusted the necromancer to raise their loved ones. It was foolish.

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  She had been foolish once.

  No one should be desecrated by the hands of wicked mages.

  It was through this revelation that she answered the twice-oathed paladin’s question, of why she sought to take the paladin’s oath.

  “So that I might one day kill Jevrick,” she said. It was all she could think of now. It was all she allowed herself to think. To dwell upon her actions at the chapel only clouded her resolve. She had done the right thing. She had to have done the right thing. Her only mistake was telling the necromancer thank you when he had carried her from the burning place. He was a deceiver. He held influence over those who heard his words. That was his greatest power. He would disarm people with his charm, and that is what he was attempting to do in Maplebrook. Lure them all into accepting him, only to harvest them for his dark plans. She saw it so clearly. She believed it.

  Atan did not respond to her declaration for a good while. Eventually, he turned from his prayer, walked over to Nora, and knelt to her level. His face softened. “Dear child. This path you think to be righteous is only a path to destruction. You cannot give into your grief. You only serve to hurt others and yourself. You must understand. Your uncle was already sick before the resurrection, he was not meant to return. And the order of paladins you seek to join? They, like I, were commanded by the Obelisk to leave Jevrick be.”

  It was as she thought, the paladin was seduced by the necromancer. He. . . he had to be deceived. Why would the Obelisk allow Jevrick to be left alone? Maybe Atan was a thrall of a different kind.

  Nora had no more words to say to him. She spun on her heels and snatched a bag from a cupboard, which she had prepared with all the things she needed to travel for a couple of days to Knightshelm.

  “Nora! What are you doing?” Atan rushed into the room and grabbed at her arm.

  She ducked underneath his grasp and slipped out a kitchen blade.

  The paladin stepped back. His eyes drooped. He did not say anything else to her as she backed outside and hopped on to the back of her uncle’s mule. She would be a paladin, a true paladin, and she would set things right again. She led the animal out of the town and rode for Kightshelm.

  Then came the sound of hooves behind. She saw that it was Atan upon his own horse.

  “Let me go!” she shouted.

  Atan drove his horse beside her. “I will take you to Knightshelm, after that, I will let you go.”

  ”What of my uncle?”

  Atan frowned. “Another who cares for him will be with him.”

  She pushed her guilt aside. She pushed aside all but vengeance.

  ===

  Maplebrook’s Population: 384 382

  ===

  ***

  I followed Bee and Oon as they guided Fern and I through the forest. It had been slow going at first, as the Nightfire weeds were quite dense and their barbs proved to be a substantial deterrent as they snagged onto our clothes with each labored step. Bee had been able to make some progress with her woodaxe, but I had eventually opted to use the scythe to help clear a path as well. Together, we were able to keep the noxious plant at bay well enough for our party to walk unmolested.

  Of course, there wasn’t a way for me to carry the Soul Mirror and swing the scythe, so I had to pass the item over to Fern.

  The apothecary had been fairly squeamish about it at first.

  “Uh, I. . . Perhaps someone else?” he had said, eyes averted from Green Thumb’s reflection.

  “What’s his problem?” the druid said to me.

  “I do not know.” I held the mirror further out to him. “Oon must keep an eye out for mutated critters, and Bee and I must clear our path. Your hands are the only free ones here.”

  Fern’s eyes glanced at the mirror much in the same way someone might sheepishly look in the direction of a nake—

  Ah, so that was it.

  “Fern,” I said kindly, “you can turn the mirror upside down if needed.”

  Green Thumb scoffed. “What? No, don’t do that. I don’t want to be looking at the cursed ground the whole time. What? Too good to look me in the eye, scrawny?”

  Fern cleared his throat. “It’s. . . not your eye.”

  Mind you, the druid had no clothes in this state of projection.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Green Thumb snapped. “Ain’t nothing you don’t recognize!"

  Fern sighed.

  I turned the mirror away so that Green Thumb was somewhat removed from the conversation.

  He protested. “Hey, what? Turn me back! Show me that scrawny man, I ain’t done with him!”

  “Dear Fern, please.” I attempted to smile, but I forgot that my visage was now dissipated, and I simply parted my skeletal jaw in what I was sure was not as pleasant an expression.

  The apothecary huffed. “Fine.”

  And from then on, he held the mirror out forward so that Green Thumb was able to see ahead of us and Fern could avoid looking at the man.

  As we had ventured on, I asked Green Thumb what questions I could conjure regarding the Nightfire weeds.

  “How do we stop it?” Had been the core aspect of my inquiries.

  He had been pleasantly forthcoming. “Ah, we had a pasture within our camp. I culled it daily to make sure it didn’t spread. Then you had to go and kill me, of course.”

  “Well, you did need to be killed, sorry to say.” I chuckled.

  He scoffed at that, but didn’t rebuttal. “Well,” he continued, “I have a ritual I can conduct at the core of the plant that will kill off the sproutlings.”

  “Right. . . About that,” I had begun. “In this state, you will not have the capability of casting much of any magic, sorry to say. Not to worry! If you could simply impart your wisdom upon me, I am sure I could manage replicating the spell.”

  “You have elemental prowess?” he asked with an approving tone.

  I cleared my throat. “Theoretically.”

  But now we had arrived at the point of our journey, which was a staple of any good adventure, where our expositive lessons were rudely interrupted by none other than a pack of enemies. In this case: wolves, deer, and even birds—all with this grotesque green saliva dripping from their mouths or wounds from where they must have been attacked by other infected beasts. The mutated creatures stalked out of the brush and surrounded us on all sides.

  “Oon,” I said.

  “Uh. . . Yes?”

  “Would you happen to know if there’s any, I don’t know, animals nearby?”

  He swallowed. “Uh. . . yes.”

  “Good, thank you for being our tracker.”