And just how can I be blamed? If the baker sells bread to a man who chokes on it, is the baker a murderer? If the wainwright sells a wagon to a farmer, and that farmer runs that wagon over a child, what crime has the wainwright committed? And yes, if a blacksmith forges a blade that finds its way into the hands of a royal assassin, and from there finds its way into the throat of a young woman’s father, how has the blacksmith sinned?

The blacksmith’s words echoed in Hanara’s mind as she moved quietly but with purpose through the twilight-choked trees of the Fovana Forest. It had taken everything she could muster, every resource she had available, just to track down the blacksmith who had forged the weapon of her father’s murder. There had been no other track to follow, no other clue. The assassin had left no mark, no footprint, no sign beyond the twisted blade. But when Hanara had finally found the blacksmith, he had not cared. The fact that his work had murdered an innocent old man meant nothing to him, nor to any of the city guards, nor to anyone, it seemed. Anyone but her.

Hanara sighed deeply. The plane of Ulona was sick. It was as simple as that. And somebody needed to heal it.

With her father gone, Hanara had nothing left but to find a purpose, and healing the world seemed like the best one she could think of. When she was a child, her father used to tell her of a time when the people of Ulona knew peace, and when those like Hanara and her mother were revered by the people. But some kind of darkness had fallen on the world, and her father had been sure it could not be undone. It had seeped into the very nature of the world.

But Hanara was not so sure. She had studied her entire life to be an Auramancer, like her mother was before her. And if anything could change the very nature of people, or perhaps of an entire world, it was an aura. A sudden breeze cut through the foliage, and Hanara wrapped her wings around her shoulders for warmth. Against her undershirt, her blouse, her travelling cloak, and her wings, the chill of the wind retreated. This brought a sad sort of smile to Hanara’s face.

“It’s all about layers,” she said quietly to herself. Her smile widened with hope. “The Body, the Mind, the Heart, and the Soul,” she repeated from years of rote memorization. “The Aura is the seed, and the Body the soil. The Mind fertilizes, the Heart waters, and the Soul is the sun that allows it all to grow.”

A sudden noise in the bushes made Hanara stop in her tracks. She covered her mouth and dropped to a crouch, knowing that if there was danger stalking her, flight was her only hope. Long moments passed as she stared at the underbrush around her. She knew that they were coming for her, that they were trying to find her. She was trying to heal the world, to make it better than what it was. But there were always those who didn’t want things better. There were always those who benefitted from the way things were. Usually, they were the ones in power. And, if the blacksmith’s slip of the tongue had been accurate, and it had been a royal assassin who had killed her father, she had a good guess as to who wanted to stop her.

Finally, after several long, tense moments, a small squirrel burst out of the bush in front of Hanara. The winged girl let out a sigh of relief as the small creature seemed to consider her for a moment before bounding away and climbing up a nearby tree. Hanara hung her head for a long time, then shook it as she stood up. “You’re getting jumpy,” she whispered to herself. “They’re not coming after you.”

But even as she said it, she knew she was wrong. They were coming after her. If she brought light to the land, then those who ruled from darkness would be lost. They had killed her father for much less. Tears began to form in the auramancer’s eyes, so she quickly brushed them away and hurried on her way through the forest. Night was falling now, and the way was slow, but Hanara knew auras to help her see through the dark. They had already proven useful to her. She had no time to rest, no time to pause. Still, every noise in the trees startled her, every howl on the breeze froze her blood and made her flex her wings, preparing for flight. They were her only true protection, and yet, they were also the reason for her woe.

The assassin who had killed her father had left no message behind explaining the reason for his murder, but Hanara could guess. It was the same reason her mother had been taken from them years earlier. It was the same reason Hanara and her father had been forced to live in a secluded cabin far from any of the other settlements. It was the same reason her father’s trips into the city were conducted only rarely, and always in disguise. Hanara felt her wings twitch at the thought, and she sighed again. She could not understand why everyone on Ulona was so bothered by the thought of mortal angels living among them.

Her father had tried to explain it to her before, but she couldn’t understand. It was so simple, so basic for her. She was what she had always been. Her mother had had wings, too. It had been perfectly normal. The fact that her father didn’t always seemed normal, too. That’s the way it had always been. What was so strange about that? But still, on those rare occasions when Hanara saw other people, they all stared, and pointed, and moved away as if her wings were some contagious virus. Her father told her that once there were many of her kind, but now there were few, if any, left. Hanara had always wondered why.

When she had discovered her father’s body that night, she understood.

Ulona was sick, and was lost in the darkness. It needed the light of the angels once more. It needed to heal. The cure had already begun, but it was not easy. Hanara had been taught well, by her mother and her father. An aura could be powerful, but alone, they are weak. The most powerful, most permanent auras needed to be built up and built upon, like the foundation of a house, or the growing of a tree. An aura applied to the Body might be removed by the Mind. An enchantment over the Mind might be circumvented by the Heart. The Heart’s aura might be discarded by the Soul, or the Soul’s by the Body. The most powerful and permanent auras needed to be woven into all four.

And even a land has a Body, a Mind, a Heart, and a Soul.

Most auras affect the Body more than anything else. This is no accident. The Body is the most receptive to auras. It takes to them better than the other three, but it also discards them faster. When building the strongest auras, it is best to start with the Body, and Hanara had done just that. If there was any place on Ulona that would represent the plane’s body, it was Vatana, the Summit Citadel. Vatana was the home of the Stonekin, the elemental warrior-monks who had for centuries or longer served as protectors of the people and of peace.

It had been lifetimes since the Stonekin had left the Summit Citadel.

Perhaps, Hanara thought, that was part of the problem. Perhaps losing the protection of the elementals had contributed to the darkness that had descended on the hearts of the people of Ulona. Perhaps when the warrior-monks had cloistered themselves into their sanctuary, they had cut off some vital supply of strength or fortitude from the land. The Stonekin were cut from the very Body of the land; there must have been some connection. And so, Hanara had gone there. The warrior-monks had allowed her to enter, and left her alone as she worked her magic. She had left them without a word, praying to her fore-matrons that the aura would help.

But she had also known that auras of the Body fade quickly unless the Mind is enchanted. The Mind is, of course, the next-most common target for auras, because the Mind by nature seeks that which is new. The mind strives. For some, it strives for betterment, improvement, and knowledge. For others, it strives for distraction, diversion, and entertainment. But it always strives. Auras that affect the Mind must be more subtle than those that affect the Body, because the Mind will strive to undo the aura, regardless of how much the Mind wanted the aura in the first place. An aura is a puzzle, after all. An enigma. And the Mind strives to solve it.

Mind auras, therefore, must be more fluid than Body auras. They must be slippery, and elusive, and they must be allowed to evolve from their initial state. In order to craft truly world-changing auras, they must also work in concert with the auras of the Body. There was only one place on Ulona that could be considered its Mind, and Hanara set out for it immediately after leaving Vatana. Scarcely a day later, thanks to her wings, she found herself on the doorsteps of the Academy of Tisana, the singular center for learning on Ulona. Potential students were known to divest themselves of all they owned for an opportunity to study there.

Hanara had given up everything she had ever owned, and it had bought her only a few short hours in their halls.

But she had come not to take knowledge from the tomes, or to extract wisdom from the enigmatic sphynxes that ruled that roost. She had, in fact, not come to take anything at all from those vaulted halls. She had come to leave something there, a beacon that would, if luck, fate, and magic were on her side, help bring light back to the world. Hanara’s meager offering to the Academy of Tisana had placed her beneath the notice of even the other students there, and had afforded her the opportunity to work her auras into the Mind of Ulona. When she was ushered out, she had left peacefully, with a contented smile on her face.

But Hanara was not smiling now. The darkness that permeated Ulona was a figurative one, but the darkness that dominated the Fovana Forest surrounding her was very real. She could sense the movement of figures in the night, often just beyond her range of vision. The wind was growing colder, and the shadows deeper. Some of those figures, she knew, were conjurations of her imagination. Others doubtlessly weren’t. In her head, every shadow that danced in the weak moonlight was an assassin on the verge of catching up to her before her work could be completed.

By now, there was a good chance that the King or those who were loyal to him had learned of Hanara’s visit to the Summit Citadel. Auramancy was illegal on Ulona, but that didn’t mean that the Royal family didn’t employ one or two mages who knew of it. Hanara had no way of knowing. If there were royal auramancers, they might very well know that Vatana was a potential point of ingress for powerful auras. Even so, it was unlikely they would be able to remove Hanara’s auras there without first dealing with the auras at Tisana. And with luck, she would be done here in the Fovana before the King discovered her work at the Academy.

Suddenly, the forest opened up into a wide clearing that was dominated by only a few, massive trees. Hanara’s breath caught in her throat. During the day, she supposed, this place might have been beautiful, when sunlight could play along the dew-covered grass and the leaves could sway in a warm and gentle breeze. But now, it seemed like something out of a nightmare. The trees along the edge of the clearing seemed twisted into monstrous shapes, just human enough to be recognizable, just twisted enough to hint at unthinkable abominations of nature. The branches shook not in a gentle dance, but in an angry gesture, and reached out in eternal hunger rather than swaying in simple joy. Hanara felt like crying, but there was work to do here. There was something she needed to find.

The Heart of Ulona.

The Heart is a difficult thing to enchant. Protected by the Body, it is often necessary to enchant the other first, even for simple auras. At the same time, the Heart is all too often opposed by the Mind, for the Mind and the Heart almost universally want opposing things. Because of this, the Mind must often be either convinced or lulled before auras of the Heart can be woven. But auras of the Heart were strong, perhaps the strongest of any of the auras, because once the Heart decides what it wants, it does not easily change.

And that, of course, posed a serious problem for Hanara. The Heart of this world had been so darkened, and for so long, that it would almost undoubtedly resist her enchantments. Ulona’s heart had been deceived into thinking it wanted darkness, and she knew it would resist her light. That was why the Body and the Mind had to come first. That was why Hanara had to move quickly. And that was why it was imperative that she find her way here, to the clearing in the Fovana Forest. Every forest had a heart, after all, and the heart of the Fovana was the Heart of Ulona.

And as Hanara stared ahead at the massive oak in the clearing’s center, she knew she had found it.

She approached the oak slowly and cautiously. When she had crossed about half the distance, she heard a loud creaking from the perimeter of the clearing. She froze instantly, moving only her eyes in the direction of the sound. She stood there for several minutes, but the sound did not repeat itself, nor did Hanara see any movement. She continued forward, moving even more slowly as she began to weave her enchantments in her mind. By the time she reached the oak, the spell would be ready. All she would need to do is touch the tree for a few short moments. The auras were coming more quickly now, with the foundations laid. Just a few more steps, and the Heart could finally be healed.

With a primal screech, Hanara dove out of the way as a mangled arm of branch and bramble grasped for her head. She tried to fly out of reach, but a second twisted arm shot out of the darkness, a rough hand grabbing at her leg. Hanara crashed hard to the ground and they were upon her, their bodies thin and wiry, their limbs far stronger than they looked. And as the first one came in close, clawing at Hanara’s right wing, the auramancer could see their faces. Cold, emotionless, human faces, carved from living wood.

Dryads.

Hanara panicked and kicked with every meager measure of strength she had. Luck, in this instance, was with her, and she caught the dryad holding her leg across the face. The mystic creature reeled away and released its grip, and Hanara rolled away blindly. The first of the dryads chased after her, but Hanara was able to roll up to a crouch, and from there, spring into the air and out of the reach of the dryads. Through the haze of her panic, Hanara surveyed the clearing. The dryads were amassing now, thinking to defend the great tree and the prize it protected.

The dark heart of the forest.

If only they could see, Hanara thought. If only they realized what I am trying to do! But auras of the Heart were always difficult. The Heart wants what it wants, even if it doesn’t truly understand what that thing is, or how much damage it does itself by wanting it. Hanara hovered for a few moments and considered simply swooping in toward the tree, but there were too many dryads. Even if she could reach the tree, and even if she could activate her aura, the dryads would rip her apart, and while three of the four auras might bring some light to Ulona, it would not cure the darkness that lingered there.

Hanara was trying to decide what to do when a tree branch thundered down across her back, sending her plummeting to the ground. Through the pain, the auramancer was able to stabilize her flight just enough to avoid landing in the midst of the dryad mob, but she still hit the grass hard as she landed. Her vision blurred, but her instinct for survival pushed her to stand and move. She could hear more than see the dryads coming after her. They were graceless, lumbering beasts, walking at her with slow, sudden movements of their twisted limbs and expressionless faces. Hanara was breathing hard and moving constantly, but the dryads were closing around her, and even the trees were resisting her. In the pale, eerie moonlight, Hanara saw her death creep upon her on gnarled legs.

Desperate and frightened, Hanara reached out to the very earth itself, to the Body of Ulona, and to its Mind. She cried out to the veins of the world, the secret channels buried deep beneath the surface that carried magic from, and to, the Heart. It was a dangerous gamble. Her auras in Vatana and Tisana were not well-established, and without enchantments on the Heart or the Soul yet, it was too soon to call on the Body or the Mind. But Hanara had no other choice. The Body, by nature, encaged the Heart, and the Mind could perhaps calm it. And all she needed was a few short minutes.

Hanara cried out to the world, and the world cried out back.

It was impossible to know whether or not the cry was an audible thing or not. Whether it echoed through the shadowy expanses of the Fovana or simply through the halls of Hanara’s mind, she would never know. What she did know was that the dryads felt it like an attack. Even as they were scrambling toward the auramancer, they shrieked out in unearthly tones and reached up, this time not for Hanara’s vulnerable frame, but for their own heads. They clutched their wooden skulls as if they were about to explode. Many of them fell writhing to the ground. Some still managed to creep toward Hanara, but too slowly to catch her.

Scarcely believing what she was seeing, Hanara rushed over to the great oak tree, dodging the fallen dryads who were still limply clawing at her as she moved. She considered taking flight, but there was no way of knowing whether or not the trees would be similarly incapacitated, so she did not risk it. Her work was too important. She moved as quickly as she felt she could, knowing that the dryads were not destroyed or in any way permanently disabled. They were still very much a threat, and time was not on her side.

Finally, though, Hanara succeeded. She cleared the last of the downed dryads and made contact with the bark of the ancient oak. She could feel the power of the heart of the forest pulsing somewhere deep within, likely caressed by the oak’s roots in an eternal embrace. Carefully but quickly, she began to cast her aura. It was difficult work. The Heart of Ulona was resisting her. It had known darkness for too long, and had taken darkness into itself. It had carefully wrapped itself in a veil of shadows, and Hanara had to pierce it just as carefully.

The tension built as Hanara wove her spell. She was alone in her work. There was nobody there, nobody left, to warn her of danger, and she knew that danger surrounded her. If the dryads recovered before she finished, she was dead. Even if they did not recover, they were not immobile, and some might have been close enough to reach her anyway. But the auramancer worked on, knowing that giving up now made all of her efforts worthless. She would not allow her father’s death to have been for nothing.

Finally, Hanara felt her aura take hold. The Heart finally relented, and allowed the spell to take root and grow. Hanara breathed a sigh of relief and opened her eyes. The clearing still looked as dark and dangerous as it had before, and the Dryads still clawed their way along the grass in her direction. The auramancer grimaced. She had known, of course, that the change would be slow, but she had managed to forget, if only for a moment, that her life would still be in danger. The auras of the Body and the Mind would hold the aura of the Heart in place for a while, but time was short. Hanara needed to get to the final piece of the puzzle, the Soul, before morning. Any longer, and she risked being discovered, her purpose undone.

Hanara took a deep breath and prayed that she could be faster than the trees that surrounded her. Then she launched herself into the air and burst straight upward, straight through the branches. Some of them moved to try to stop her, but she managed to avoid them. Others moved out of her way as she climbed skyward. But in moments, she found herself free of the Fovana Forest. Her travelling cloak was torn and tattered, but intact. Her blouse had a few tears in it, but nothing serious. Her skin was mostly unmarred, with only a few superficial scratches. All in all, it was a victory.

But Hanara had a long night ahead of her. The auras were placed on the Body, the Mind, and the Heart, but she had not slept in nearly two days, and she had a full night of flying ahead of her. In her life, she had never flown as much at one time as she would need to tonight. Truthfully, she did not know if her wings would prove strong enough to take her to the Soul of Ulona. But she had to try. She had no more home to return to, and nowhere else to go. All she had now was her purpose, and she was so close to completing it. With one more deep breath, Hanara set out.

It was a long, lonely flight. Hanara flew in silence as she watched the ground spread out like a silver sea beneath her. The moonlight cast the land’s contours in eerie half-shadows and muted light. It became a featureless expanse below the auramancer, and it tired her eyes to look at it. Instead, she cast her mind in time, first back to memories of her mother and father, now both lost to her, and then to the future, when things could be better. She imagined a world of light, a world of justice. She imagined, and she prayed.

Hanara was exhausted nearly to the point of collapse when she alighted on the ground in front of the Mausoleum of Piambina. She barely had the strength to smile. The Mausoleum was a large structure situated in the center of the Anavast, the heartland of Ulona, the expansive plains frequented only by farmers and shepherds. The tomb was a monument to everything that was Ulona. It was the resting place for the Worldsoul itself, and Piambina, the Soul of Ulona, slept within.

The auramancer hesitated at the great metal door that led down into the sepulcher. She was so tired that she could barely think straight, but something was bothering her. Something wasn’t right. She had never been to the Mausoleum before, so she had nothing to compare it to, but something seemed out of place. Silently, she cursed at her senses. Why did they have to be so dulled? Was she so weak that she couldn’t go just a few days without sleep to bring light to the world? And what was that noise?

Suddenly, Hanara’s eyes shot open wide. That was it. That’s what was out of place. She suddenly realized that she’d been hearing a loud noise for some time, but it hadn’t registered. But she was aware of it now, and it frightened her nearly to death. It was the sound of cavalry. It was thundering across the plains, and growing louder. They were coming this way, and they could have only been the King’s men. The cavalry never came to the Mausoleum. There should have been no reason to, unless they suspected trouble. The winged auramancer was shaking.

They must have discovered her work.

She had to hurry. If she could just get to the Soul, she could cast her final aura. With the Body, the Mind, and the Heart already enchanted, it should be easy. Just the briefest physical contact and a few fleeting seconds, and she would be done. Even if the soldiers reached her and finished her, she could die contented, knowing that her final moments had brought light to the world. All she needed was the time.

As Hanara fumbled with the door of the Mausoleum, she looked behind her and saw that time was going to be in very short supply. It was not yet dawn, but the sky was beginning to brighten as the sun eased its way up toward the horizon. In the dull light of pre-dawn, Hanara could just make out the cloud of dust kicked up by the King’s horsemen as they rode to execute the last of Hanara’s kind. She panicked again as she turned back around, but the door would not open. She pushed and pulled against the metal door, but it was no use. Either the great doors of the Mausoleum were locked tight, or rusted shut, or had never been designed to open in the first place.

She could hear voices now, shouting voices, and could almost make out words. Whatever words she could not quite make out were filled in by her imagination, and it was becoming clear that they were about her. They were accompanied by battle cries and vows of violence, and Hanara found that she could barely stand atop her shaking legs. The door simply would not give, so Hanara reluctantly abandoned it. She turned around to face the approaching army just as the first of the horsemen began to slow to avoid crashing into her.

Hanara shrieked and took to the air, her blind charge launching her straight into the foremost rider. He reached for his sword to take a swing at her, but Hanara was faster. She banked upward and kicked at the horseman with both legs, using the extra momentum to get more height. The rider toppled from his saddle as the rest of the cavalry began to yell. Hanara glanced back at the fallen man to see his chest covered in blood, but before she could react to the sight, she heard the order to fire from below her. An instant later, the air around her was filled with arrows, and she was dodging for her life.

A pain-filled shriek burst from Hanara’s throat as one of the arrows tore through her left wing.

The auramancer had climbed high off of her strike to the horseman, but she began to lose altitude quickly after the arrow struck her. She maintained control just long enough to notice that, at the top of the Mausoleum, there was a skylight. The shadow-gray light from the still-hiding sun was just beginning to illuminate the inside of Piambina’s tomb, and to Hanara, it looked a lot like hope. With a surge of will and strength, Hanara pushed herself forward, and her momentum carried her into and through the window. The glass shattered all around her, and she fell hard to the marble floor of the Mausoleum. Her wounded left wing took the brunt of the fall, and for just a moment, she almost blacked out.

Until, that is, she saw Piambina.

The Soul of Ulona was lying on a ceremonial pedestal just a short distance from the place where Hanara had fallen. Hardly daring to believe, the auramancer struggled to her feet. From the pain, she assumed that her left wing was broken, but that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was her purpose. The Body, the Mind, and the Heart were all ready, and now, the very thing that could bring light to the world was lying just in front of her, resting in nearly eternal sleep. Limping toward the pedestal, Hanara prepared the final aura. She prepared to complete her purpose.

As she prepared, Hanara marveled at what she saw in front of her. Legend said that the Worldsoul had rested here for thousands of years, but in that time, few if any had ever dared to enter. It was utterly awe-inspiring to see Piambina, and to know that she was the only living being on Ulona to have done so. Even more astounding was what Piambina was. In all the histories and the legends, no description of her had ever been given. She was simply the Soul. But now that Hanara saw her, she couldn’t believe her own eyes.

Piambina was an angel, just like Hanara.

Well, perhaps not just like Hanara. There were differences. While Hanara had raven-black hair, Piambina’s was golden blond. While Hanara was comparatively short, it was obvious even from her lying position that Piambina was at least two heads taller than the tallest human Hanara had ever seen. The auramancer also thought it was very strange the way the angel’s wings seemed to sprout from the middle of her back, and she thought it even more odd that she had the arms and legs of a human, rather than angelic ones.

Hanara was just about to touch the sleeping angel’s forehead when the door to the Mausoleum was thrown violently open and several soldiers burst in.

“Don’t you dare defile her, you filthy harpy!”

Hanara shrieked at the word. Her father had always told her that was a bad word, one that decent people didn’t use. As she stared back at the speaker, she was momentarily surprised, but that surprise passed quickly. She should have known that the King, who sought the darkness so vehemently, would use such uncouth language.

“You killed my father!” Hanara hissed.

The King scoffed. “Your kind curses and blights all it touches. If your father was that cursemonger I ordered destroyed, then I am more than vindicated. Did he adopt you, beast, or did he defile himself by mating with your mother?”

“Darkness!” Hanara shrieked, her feathers ruffling. “I will bring light to this world!”

“Light?” The King asked. “Is that what you call what you did to Vatana and Tisana?”

“Exhaustion seeps into the Body,” Hanara said, “weakening the frame. Blood pours from the Mind, dulling the sense. Even the Heart is pierced. And now,” Hanara said, looking down at the angel, “the Soul is gripped…by Death’s Hold!”

Hanara thrust her right wing forward and clutched Piambina’s forehead with her clawed hand. In the same instant, she activated her final aura, flooding the Soul of Ulona with its power. Piambina’s white eyes shot open, but they were white for only a moment before they darkened to a purplish black. Several of the King’s men fell to their knees from shock and weakness, but after just a few moments, Piambina moved to sit up for the first time in centuries, shrugging off Hanara’s hand as she did. The angel seemed to look around for a moment, and then screamed, her voice so powerful it nearly shattered the walls of her tomb.

Then, with one mighty leap, she flew straight upward, out of the Mausoleum, and out into a world that was begging her for light.

For a long moment, the King and his men looked around in shock before all eyes eventually settled on Hanara. As the King spoke, his voice was shaking in equal parts from fear and from rage. “I do not know what you have done, harpy, but your atrocities end here.”

He moved to take a step forward, but stopped as the ground began to rumble. Once again, the eyes of the horsemen wandered all around until the pressure became too much, and the ground just outside the Mausoleum erupted in a blast of fire that swallowed up several of the King’s horses and soldiers. There were screams of pain and terror, and fire was everywhere. Hanara’s eyes widened, and a grin crossed her face. When the King looked back in her direction, he could see the fires of his kingdom dancing gleefully in her eyes.

“I told you I would bring light to this world,” Hanara cackled. “Enjoy it!”

“Kill her!” The King said, but Hanara barely heard the words. In her exuberance at her success, Ulona itself began to spiral away from her. At first, she did not notice. All she saw was the light. But eventually, even that faded into the swirling of her vision, and in time, her vision vanished, too. All that remained was the spinning, the swirling, of reality itself. A part of Hanara was afraid, but mostly, she did not think. Her purpose had been fulfilled, and there was nothing left for her on Ulona. With that realization, Hanara allowed herself to be taken by the spiral, and she lost any semblance of mortal consciousness.

Hanara had no idea how long she had been out when she felt a boot gently nudging her in the side. After a long and painful struggle, she managed to open her eyes to see a friendly-looking human man standing over her.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“I…I think so,” Hanara managed.

“Good,” the man said. “’Cause you can’t stay here.”

“What?”

“Sorry,” the man said, and seemed genuine. “But this is Market Square. Only sellers allowed here. So unless you’ve got something you can sell, you’ll need to move out of here before the Hour Toll sounds.”

“Sell?” Hanara asked, confused. She looked around her. The Mausoleum was gone, and so was the Anavast and, from the look of things, all of Ulona. In their place was a quant town square with cobblestone streets lined by houses with thatched roofs. Hanara shook her head to clear it, but the strange sight stayed.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” The man repeated. “Yeah, sell. You know, like, I sell cloth, as my father sold before me. What did your father sell?”

“Curses, I suppose.”

“Curses?” The man scratched his head. “You can sell curses, you say?”

A small, wicked smile crossed Hanara’s face. “I suppose I could, now that you mention it.”

The man shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like the nicest thing to sell. All they can do is hurt people.”

Hanara climbed to her clawed feet and stared at the stranger. “And how can I be blamed? If a man chokes on bread, is the baker a murderer?”