Chapter 127
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The Woodpecker territory was protected by the Watchman, a dedicated brigade of knights rather than a solitary guard. Adi understood that their primary theater of operations was the northern Oak Forest. Their history was one of extremes: in times of conflict, they were the invisible blades purging the woods of invaders from the core to the perimeter; in the current era of stability, they served as the forest’s silent sentinels. At least, that was the official narrative.
The once-lush canopy had vanished, replaced by a skeletal wasteland of carbonized timber where the inferno had marched through. Those who had held onto the hope that the devastation might be superficial were met with a landscape of total ruin, their faces falling into masks of pure grief.
The destruction extended beyond the flora. The survivors were a portrait of physical and mental collapse. Men in scorched cloaks sat motionless, defeated by thirst, while others shared their meager water rations with displaced creatures. Among the wreckage, Mages moved with grim purpose.
Though reports had described a catastrophic blaze, the true magnitude of the disaster only became clear upon arrival. Joel leapt from his horse without a word, rushing to provide medical aid. He wasn’t the only practitioner of the arts present; several other Mages were already on the scene.
Dimitri observed that the conflagration had likely been suppressed through magical intervention. Yuls offered nothing but a dark, silent nod. For Adi, the technicalities were lost in the horror. She saw only a vast, blackened graveyard under a sky choked with thinning soot. The world had been drained of color, leaving only a suffocating gray that felt like a haunting echo of Grimaldi.
Stepping down from her mount, Adi surveyed the chaos. She soon recognized a familiar figure. Roy, his red mantle tattered, was bent low, pouring water from a canteen. A group of forest animals had gathered around him. The larger predators were nowhere to be seen, but the smaller inhabitants—their fur matted and singed—drank with a desperate, frantic energy.
“Roy,” Adi called as she reached him.
When he looked up, she saw a face masked in thick soot and grime. His hair was uneven and short, the ends clearly lost to the heat.
“So, you’ve arrived,” he noted.
Adi looked him over. “You’re a disaster.”
“Consider these the scars of a job well done,” he replied, attempting to wipe his face. As he moved, Adi caught sight of the raw blisters and bloody fissures mapping his hands. He was suffering from significant burns, yet he hadn’t stopped tending to the animals. She firmly took the water skin from his damaged grip and knelt in his place. Creatures that would normally flee from a human’s shadow now crowded her, driven by a thirst that overrode their instincts. It was a surreal sight.
“Go find a healer,” she commanded.
“I’ll get to it,” Roy muttered, falling into a sudden, heavy silence. Adi glanced up, sensing a shift in his demeanor. His features were contorted in a painful struggle for composure, his breath hitching as he fought back an internal tide. Finally, he managed to squeeze out a few words.
“At the very least… we didn’t lose any people this time.”
His voice cracked, heavy with the weight of unshed grief. Adi felt a pang of sympathy.
“That is a mercy,” she whispered.
She understood the grim subtext of his relief all too effectively. The shadow of the Witch Hunt had stretched across the land, leaving a trail of bodies consumed by flames, regardless of whether they had been breathing when the fire started.
“Not a single soul lost,” Roy insisted, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He tried to project a sense of stoicism, and Adi, respecting his pride, looked away to let him hide his tears.
Every person there carried a private agony they kept locked away. They wore masks of duty until the pressure became too great, eventually forcing those buried feelings to the surface in a violent rush. Adi debated whether to offer words or silence; ultimately, she settled for a quiet, supportive hand on his shoulder. Allowing him the dignity of his facade seemed like the most compassionate path.
Nearby, Yuls had climbed down from his horse to walk among the ruins.
This place had once been his sanctuary, a vibrant lungs-of-the-world where he could truly feel alive. If he had a place to call home, it wasn’t the stone walls of his castle, but these very trees. The Oak Forest was the ancestral seat of the Witch.
As he moved through the wreckage, the air was thick with the cloying scent of death. Even the fading sparks in the ash felt like an insult to the life that had been lost.
Yuls paused before a solitary, flickering ember. It was a fragile thing, something a boot could crush or time would simply extinguish. Instead, he knelt and touched it with his finger. At his contact, the tiny spark erupted into a violent, hungry flame.
The knights surged forward, weapons ready, and Adi instinctively gripped her hilt. Even though steel was useless against fire, the reflex was absolute. Yuls raised a hand, a silent command for them to stand down, and the soldiers halted.
The fire climbed onto Yuls’s skin. Rather than consuming his hand, the flames split into three distinct ribbons of light. With a sharp, hissing sound, the fire took the shape of a bird, complete with flickering wings and a sharp beak. The creature of heat fluttered above his palm before leaning in to nuzzle his skin with strange affection.
“Go to your source,” Yuls commanded.
The firebird tilted its head, appearing confused for a heartbeat.
“Show me where you began.”
Understanding seemed to click. The bird looked toward the horizon, opening its beak to emit the popping, crackling sound of a hearth fire. It took to the air, leaving a shimmering trail in the dim sky.
The creature began to fly in wide arcs, eventually steadying its course toward the west. It moved with a deliberate pace, circling back frequently to ensure Yuls could keep up.
The onlookers watched with a mixture of reverence and unease. This was a vivid, undeniable proof that their lord was something more—or perhaps something less—than a standard human. A thin veil of dread colored their awe.
You must turn your heart to stone.
Yuls’s expression remained a blank slate of indifference.
For those who lead, there is no other way.
Adi felt a sudden tightness in her chest as those words echoed in her mind. She looked at the Duke—a man who had never been allowed a normal childhood, wielding powers that defied human logic. The world knew he was an anomaly.
Had his life been defined by loneliness?
That realization struck her harder than any display of magic. It wasn’t the power that moved her, but the profound sense of isolation that must accompany such an existence. A wave of nausea and pity rose within her. She wanted to reach out, to offer some kind of solace, but the right words didn’t exist. She could only press her hand against her stomach, trying to steady herself.
*
The firebird maintained its westward heading. It led them deep into the charred remains until it hovered low over a specific clearing.
There stood a titan of a tree. It dwarfed every other oak in the forest, but it had been transformed into a ghostly, ashen pillar. It was a haunting, unnatural monument of white amidst the black.
Yuls stopped before the giant and lifted his hand.
“This is the origin.”
For a fleeting instant, his palm seemed to radiate a faint light, though most observers dismissed it as a trick of the shifting smoke. The firebird landed on his shoulder, hopped down his arm, and vanished into a hollow in the blanched wood. The flames retracted, shrinking until only a faint, dying glow remained in the heart of the tree.
“This is a specific branch of Flame Magic,” a soot-stained Mage explained, stepping forward. He was one of the many practitioners Adi had seen working in the ruins.
“It wasn’t designed for destruction,” the Mage continued. “It was crafted for endurance.”
“I recognize it,” Yuls said softly. “A spell meant for clearing fields, stolen from farmers to gut a forest.”
He leaned forward, resting his brow against the scorched bark.
“Just like this.”
His fingers brushed the wood, trembling slightly. Yuls knew this specific tree; it was the ancient residence of the Witch. He had been the one to dismantle her physical house years ago, but the tree itself had remained the living heart of the Woodpecker woods. Now, that foundation was gone. The soul of the forest had been severed.
A heavy silence fell over the group. Adi couldn’t tell if they were mourning or simply paralyzed by the sheer intensity of the Duke’s silent rage and grief.
She began to circle the massive trunk, hoping to find some physical evidence of the arsonist. As she rounded the far side, she stopped dead. Her body went rigid, and the color drained from her face.
Her mouth opened, but no sound followed. She pressed her hand over her lips, as if physically preventing a scream or a surge of bile from escaping. She couldn’t rationalize what she was seeing.
Dimitri was the first to notice her distress. “Adi? What is it?”
He walked over to her side and immediately went still, his eyes widening in shock.
The silence grew infectious. One by one, the others gathered to see what had stopped them. Yuls approached last. When Adi looked up, her eyes were swimming with an unspoken, desperate apology. Yuls followed her gaze downward.
Tangled in the massive, scorched roots lay a man. A sword was buried deep in his midsection, the blade acting as a grim plug that had prevented him from bleeding out. Despite the horrific burns covering his skin, his chest moved with the faint, rhythmic struggle of breath.
“He’s still breathing,” someone whispered.
“I didn’t expect to find Lev Zid in this place,” Yuls said, his voice dropping into a dark, melodic irony. His lips curled into a chilling smile.
The crowd’s attention shifted as one toward Adi. The identity of the perpetrator was written in the silence.
“A parting gift,” Yuls murmured.
Count Grimaldi.
Adi shielded her eyes with her palm, her breath coming in ragged gasps. A suffocating blend of shame and white-hot anger threatened to overwhelm her.
The Count’s cruelty was always consistent, even at the end.
