What once appeared to be a single pillar from a distance turned into a streak of black and oily gray hanging over the northern shore. Behind it, homes were destroyed—both the wooden ones on the shore and the more solid ones further back—with only a few walls still standing.
Bits and bobs of what used to be fishing boats floated down the river, some still smoky, while others were just barely visible as the currents carried them away.
“There are no shapes in the air, and no active fires,” Pauline said, scanning ahead. “They must have been gone for a while.”
Before Orion could respond, he felt his mother’s magic surround the entire flight, and although it was just a communication spell, it had enough power to make his broom vibrate between his legs.
When she spoke, her voice was as cold as ice, “First and second flights, move out and sweep three miles inland for anyone who might have managed to get away in time. Third through sixth, move down. Prioritize stabilizing structures, douse active fires, and establish a triage point in one of the more intact houses for any survivors we might find.”
The last part was quieter, as if she couldn’t believe anyone would come out unscathed from that. To be fair, Orion wasn’t sure how that was possible either, but he agreed that they needed to at least try.
The flight leaders issued orders to carry out her will, and the spearhead broke apart.
Orion and Pauline descended through the middle ranks, pushing through smoke that tasted of salt, tar, and something metallic, prompting them to filter the air to avoid getting poisoned.
Asteria landed ahead of them and moved straight toward the blackened dock, slicing a crumbling warehouse into sections with a snap of her fingers so the walls wouldn’t fall on the witches entering, and allowing them to begin establishing a temporary base.
The extent of the destruction was even clearer up close. The port town was a long stretch of buildings, including homes, docks, chandlers, cooper’s sheds, net lofts, and smokehouses, all tightly built along the water’s edge, making them very vulnerable to fire.
That same fire had melted timber into glassy slag, and where it hadn’t consumed it, it had boiled the waterways into highly caustic steam.
Orion carefully floated over a mooring bollard that had melted like wax, then hardened again, strengthening the protections around him as he felt the very air start to eat away at them.
“Let’s take the inner areas.” Pauline’s mouth flattened, and she looked at the toxic smoke with sadness. Anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle of that would have died long ago. "If anyone had any hope of surviving this, it would have been there.”
He nodded and veered left, leaving the creaking wooden buildings behind.
The SDGs might be useful for this. If I keep inspecting my surroundings, I could find survivors faster than by scrying.
If they had better knowledge of the land or even a single contact in the town, they could have used that to improve their divination magic, but as it was, everyone was flying blind, so every method was worth trying.
He worked carefully, not wanting to miss anything. The houses were badly damaged, so he only needed to fly over them to see if anyone was still inside, but some of the warehouses were more solid and needed a more detailed check.
Orion even flew through slipways and alleys. At one point, a moving shape turned out to be a burned-out building, finally collapsing under the strain. A few more times, the SDGs labeled something, though it was really just cats and other critters curiously going through the rubble.
They’ll die if they stay here, he thought, and didn’t feel too bad about wasting a few minutes to carry them out of the toxic cloud, stunning them briefly so they wouldn’t go right back into it.
Hopefully, Mom will find a way to get rid of this thing, or it’s going to be an ecological disaster.
It was kind of funny that the first such thing he encountered in this world was the fault of a draconic faction. In traditional fantasy stories, dragons were often greedy and voracious, but also wise and respectful of their surroundings. That didn’t seem to be the case here. They were just people, and like all people, they destroyed anything they believed they should.
He found the first corpse not long after. It was hard to determine their gender, but whoever they were, they had died where they fell, with one arm over their head, as if that could matter against drakefire.
The second had crawled a little longer, dragging blackened legs until they reached a cistern, where the flames finally engulfed their whole body.
He swallowed hard and moved on, trying to stay focused on the task at hand. There would be time later to come to terms with the massacre that had taken place. If there were any survivors, they needed to be found quickly.
Broken house after broken house, Orion was starting to lose hope that such a thing was even possible, but that was when his latest scan revealed something that wasn’t just an animal.
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He directed his broom to the ground, dismounting and crouching. There, hidden beneath the rubble of a fallen house, were two floating signs.
[Tia — Lv. 34] [Weaver - E-rank]
[Will — Lv. 7] [Child - F-rank]
They were, perhaps, the weakest people he had ever bothered to inspect. There was nothing special about them to justify their survival, but at the same time, Orion could feel the wellspring of hope burst in his chest at the discovery.
He immediately began lifting the rubble, lightening the load with a quick antigravity spell and telekinetically pulling away even the largest beams.
Pauline was with him no more than a minute later, not even asking what he had found. They worked in silence until they reached the ground floor, revealing a blocked-off opening to a cold cellar.
The door had warped, so he didn’t bother with the latch. A [Wind Push] from the inside broke the hinges, letting him pull the door away completely.
Cold air swept over him, heavy with brine and the sour smell of fish oils. He cast a [Torchlight], illuminating the opening, and saw that his glasses had not failed him yet.
“Hello?” he called softly.
A shadow flinched against the back wall as the light passed over it, revealing a burlap bundle wrapped around a smaller one, both covered in a wet cloak in a failed attempt to keep the cold away. The larger one struggled for a moment, weakened by the cold, but eventually managed to come up and meet his eyes.
She looked filthy, her face smudged with soot and small cuts that weren’t bleeding only because of the temperature, and her blue lips told Orion the situation still wasn’t safe.
“Don’t come closer,” she whispered, unfocused and scared.
“I’m Orion,” he said, not descending yet. “I’m with the witches of the Lunar Sanctum. The attack is over; we can get you to a warm place if you'll let me get you out of there.”
It took the woman a few seconds to focus enough to understand his words, but eventually she gave a small nod, which was all he needed.
He snapped off a warming charm into the air to keep her from going into shock and unclasped his cloak, drifting down into the storage room. The woman made an instinctive move to hide the other bundle, only to expose it as a boy, whose eyes, glassy with shock, remained fixed.
“Hey,” Orion said, crouching down and lowering his voice to be as soothing as possible. “You did well. This saved your lives. I’m going to move you now, and it might feel a bit uncomfortable, but you need to bear with me.”
He slid the cloak under the boy with a single smooth motion, wrapped him tightly, and then convinced the woman to let go. She didn’t want to, but she shifted her grip to Orion’s sleeve when the newly heated air caused her to shiver from the initial touches of warmth.
“Sorry,” she managed to say as he stood, ignoring for now how the boy in his arms felt too light. “I didn’t... he didn’t cry. I told him not to. I told him, and he was so good..."
“You did everything right,” Orion said honestly. “Hold onto my shoulder, I’ll take us out.”
He didn’t try to get them to climb the stairs. The floor had become a slick layer of ice and mud, and his balance wasn’t worth the risk with a child in his arms. He cast as delicate a version of a levitation spell as he could, then wrapped it around both of them and lifted, letting the spell carry them up and out, past the ruined threshold, and into the night air.
Pauline grabbed the woman a moment later, giving her something to hold onto and avoiding both of them weighing him down, for which he gave her a grateful nod. His body might be reasonably strong now, but he still wasn’t in the best shape.
She must have managed to send word ahead of his find, because his mother was there a moment later. She didn’t waste time explaining who she was or what she wanted to do, as light mana unspooled from her hands, gathering with the force that made the hairs on Orion’s arms rise, and sank into the two survivors, easing their breaths and restoring some color to their skin and lips.
Once the spell had run its course, she pulled out two flasks, opened them, and offered one over. A sweet, smoky aroma filled the air, and Orion could see that the woman instinctively leaned toward it.
He and Pauline assisted with the first sips, especially for the child, since he was still unconscious. However, once the magic started taking effect, they stepped back and allowed the two to drink on their own.
The boy’s hands uncurled, and his eyes opened, tired and dazed, but still alert enough to hold onto the flask and drink its entire contents, until a pleasant warmth spread from his skin, replacing the deathly cold of before.
“What are their names?” Asteria asked.
“Tia and Will,” Orion replied before the woman could realize the question should have only been answered by her.
“Will,” Asteria repeated, and the boy’s gaze snapped to meet hers. “You were very brave.”
Will blinked once, twice, then started to shake. By the time his shivers subsided, he was crying softly, with his mother’s hand on his cheek offering comfort.
A moment later, Tia seemed to realize that the person they had been talking to was actually quite important, and her mouth opened and closed. “I—my lady—”
“Come with me,” Asteria said, already turning, and a witch had a house appear before her words were finished. Brick from a fallen chimney moved smoothly into perfect shapes, glass reformed from melted sand and settled into fresh sills, and a hearth took shape and came to life.
Asteria led them inside, then motioned toward Orion and Pauline.
Tia sat on the edge of a bench as if afraid to touch it, while Will kept his fingers fisted in Orion’s cloak even after it was wrapped around his shoulders.
“We’ll keep this short and let you rest afterward,” Asteria said. “Tell me what happened. Anything you remember might matter.”
Tia’s eyes flicked to Pauline, then Orion, then back to Asteria. The tremor that had started in her hands spread to her mouth, but then steadied. “They came not long after dawn,” she said. “We heard noise upriver yesterday, so we kept the boys ashore. The men argued about it. Some said the Brine League got a word through that the Consort ships would come down from the Crimson Wheel’s forces at Stillport, so the men hung the emergency lanterns and sent the proper signal to ask for help.”
“And?” Orion asked, before he could stop himself.
Tia glanced at him blankly. “Before anyone could answer our calls, the first dragons were upon us.”
“How long did it last?” Asteria asked.
“A long time. I saw them eat some people, and take their time melting the rest of the town. The ones who made it to the river got dragged under by something with teeth. The men who tried for the boats…” She shook her head once. “I hid with Will in the cold cellar and spread the oil off the hooks so they wouldn’t smell us.”
Asteria nodded. “I thought the Brine League paid the Consortium for protection. Why wouldn’t they come?”
“Forgive me, my lady, I don't know. Old Arsan said the Crimson Wheel keeps their cities well-staffed and that they are worth the cost, since the Vigil won’t send riders this far. They always came before today.”
“But they didn’t this time,” Pauline muttered.
“We lit the lanterns,” Tia repeated, gripping the edge of the bench until her knuckles went white. “The boys said the smoke rose cleanly. They must have seen it, and it’s only a few hours by river. They should have come.”
Asteria’s face remained unchanged, but something in her eyes tightened. “Thank you,” she said. “You did everything that could be done, and saved your son.” She stood, the room suddenly seeming too small for her. “Eris,” she called through the door, and a slight witch with a bundle of clean linen appeared as if she had been waiting on the step. “Stay with them.”
Asteria stepped back onto the street, and Orion followed.
“What are you thinking?” He asked.
She looked east, where the Crimson Wheel Consortium was, her expression grim.
“I’m thinking that this is the start of a very complicated situation,” she said. “Either someone within the Wheel is collaborating with the dragons, triggering a civil war, or we're heading into chaos. Either way, we’ll find out what has really been going on with their strange dealings of the past few years.
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