CHAPTER 3

The Staghorns were burning, and Oakwald
with them.
The mighty, ancient trees were little more
than charred husks, ash thick as snow raining
down.
Embers drifted on the wind, a mockery of
how they had once bobbed in her wake like
fireflies while she’d run through the Beltane
bonfires.
So much flame, the heat smothering, the
air itself singeing her lungs.
You did this you did this you did this.
The crack of dying trees groaned the