The village still slept.
The firepits had long turned to ash. The night sky wore a curtain of quiet, but the unease from earlier lingered like smoke Kaelen couldn't shake. He stared at the trees where Maelra disappeared into shadow, her words echoing in the hollows of his chest.
Would you burn the world down… even if a few innocents got caught in the fire?
He didn't have an answer.
A shiver passed through him.
Then the sky lit up.
It wasn't the soft light of morning. It was a violent pulse of blinding white-blue, a flash from the heart of the village that turned night into day.
Then came the sound.
A snap—no, a crack, like the world itself splitting open. The ground trembled beneath his feet as the blast wave tore through the village. Kaelen was flung off his feet, hitting the ground hard.
A deep, thunderous BOOM followed.
Screams. Fires. The roar of something unnatural as half the village vanished in a heartbeat. The explosion hadn't just burned it had unraveled, buildings pulled apart from the inside as if by invisible threads.
Kaelen stumbled to his feet, coughing. The air was thick with smoke and magic he could feel it, burning cold and electric against his skin.
He turned toward the crater at the village's center.
A strange pattern pulsed in the dirt. Glowing blue runes etched deep into the earth, forming a perfect circle of intricate symbols and twisted geometry.
He froze.
"…Runes…"
His voice was barely a whisper, but even saying the word made something click deep inside him. A memory. A lesson. Faint and buried.
Runes.
They were relics of the old world. Used by sorcerers and enchanters to enhance. To protect. Imbue. Place them on weapons to grant them strength. Armor to give resilience. Walls to hold back sieges. They were tools, supportive magic. Harmless. Helpful.
That was their purpose.
Until now.
Kaelen stepped closer, eyes wide. These ones weren't stabilizing anything they'd detonated. Someone had rewritten the rules. Someone had turned runes into a weapon.
He heard a groan and turned sharply. Tomas. The boy who always gave him bread. He lay motionless near the edge of the blast, blood streaking across his temple.
Kaelen ran to him.
He was still breathing but barely.
And then the realization struck him like a blade in the chest.
...This wasn't an accident.
And Kaelen knew it not just because of the precision of the blast, or the unnatural geometry of the runes still glowing in the earth but because no ordinary magic could have done this. This wasn't wild sorcery. This was designed. Calibrated. Controlled.
The explosion hadn't hit the farmland. It hadn't reached the forest's edge. It had obliterated the heart of the village where people gathered the square, the well, the homes closest to the center. Everything else was untouched. The targeting had been exact.
Runes didn't randomly explode.
Someone had placed them.
Someone had waited.
Someone,yes someone...lit...the.. match.