Page 176 of A Legacy of the Light

The ground is black underneath our horses’ hooves. Not as though a fire has spread, but as though it has been drained so completely that this is all that’s left. Some of the buildings stand half crumbled. Others are completely destroyed, the stone as dark as the ground. Wooden doors hang off their hinges or lie in splinters in the doorway.

The hollowness of the village echoes within me. I pull Mabel to a stop in the small square where a fountain is void of water. Void of life. Not even the birds sing, and the wind feels silent as it blows gently around us.

“What happened here?” I quietly ask.

“Dorche. This is what they do in their quest for power,” Tavish replies solemnly.

“Did everyone make it out?”

“This time they did.”

His words rumble through me.

This time.

This is so different to the attack in the city. It dawns on me that this is why people carried on as if nothing had happened. It’s because compared to the wreckage the Dorche normally leave, the people of Elfayne City were lucky.

“A lot of the families here ended up in the village we passed not long ago. I helped build some of the new homes while I was here earlier in the year.”

I look at him, then at the empty village. Sorrow wraps a fist around my heart. I have known the Dorche are a threat since the day I arrived. Seeing the full impact of the power they wield, and the devastation they leave in their wake, scares me. Humans wouldn’t stand a chance against this.

“Elsie? We need to leave,” he urges me gently.

“You can’t let them get into the human world, Tavish.” I look at him, pleading with my eyes. “They . . . we wouldn’t be able to defeat this. Even with weapons and technology.”

“I know,” he replies tenderly, and I follow him out of the village.

◆◆◆

When we reach the edges of Lassodie, the sky is a deep blue and the stars make their appearance. There’s a large inn with stables on the edge of town where we will be staying for the night before leaving tomorrow morning. The two-story building has a pale blue painted door and heather growing in small bushes along the window panes. Light flickers through the glass, and a large bald Seelie with a thick black beard emerges to greet us.

“Good evenin’, Prince Tavish,” he says with a bow.

“Hello, Mac, how are you?”

“Aye, I’m no’ bad, laddie. Good journey?” he replies, with a heavy accent that suits his stocky frame.

“Uneventful. Mac, this is Reyne and Elsie.” Tavish introduces us to the inn keeper. He dismounts Atlas and comes to my side, taking my hips in his hands to help me off Mabel. I swing my leg over and the ache radiating through my legs and back causes the objection I was about to make to die on my tongue. It also makes me glad I have at least some riding experience. Making that journey as a novice would be beyond painful.

“Nice to meet ya, ladies. We have hot food and rooms waiting for ya.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Reyne replies, stretching her legs now she has two feet on the ground.

“We’ll see to the horses. Get yourselves inside now.”

“Thanks, Mac.” Tavish pats the Seelie’s burly shoulder as we walk round him and through the wooden door.

A fire crackles in a massive hearth at the far end of the room surrounded by deep armchairs and low end tables. The rest of the large space is broken up by long wooden tables with benches either side and smaller round tables with wooden chairs tucked underneath. The walls are painted a soft cream with paintings and tapestries hung along them. A bar spans the length of the wall on the left with two Seelie working behind it and a wooden staircase stands opposite.

There are a few Seelie dotted about, talking quietly among themselves under the low-hanging chandeliers, but the inn is mostly empty.

Tavish leads us to one of the long wooden tables, and I try not to wince when I lift a leg over the bench to sit down. I see his lips twitch out of the corner of my eye, and I flip him off as I settle, gingerly, into my seat. The guard across from me snickers behind his hand.

Tavish shakes his head as he takes a seat next to me, Reyne on his other side.

A Seelie with long black hair approaches our table. “Prince Tavish, nice to have you back,” she says, her smile polite and welcoming.

“Hi, Maggie,” he replies, equally courteous.