"My guess is they're waiting on Her Highness to take pity on them—pity the world, soften her heart. They mean to call up her compassion." Aednor's mouth curved, a trace of mockery under it.
"Pass the order. Leave none alive." Elara raised the trident in her hand, and the command kindled with the Flame of Will along its prongs and went racing out.
Half a day later, blood soaked the ground, and the last of the sun sank, hanging by a thread.
Elara rode her Snail-Dragon at the head of her seven demigods and entered the village at a slow pace. Against the morning's quiet, it had changed past recognition. Black scorched earth everywhere, rolling smoke and ash hanging over it, crows wheeling and circling between the branches and the corpses—an ill omen, a different kind of quiet.
