The scorched courtyard smelt of blood and heather. Bodies lay lifeless on the cobbles; seeping crimson into the ground while the wheels on an upturned cart still spun, mead flowing from broken barrels… Darkness had descended upon Thezmarr, and at its heart was a copper-haired little girl, no older than six, clutching a necklace of dried flowers and a small scythe of Naarvian steel to her pounding chest. The last of the onyx power left the blade in curling tendrils, wisps of magic swallowed by rolling thunder that seemed to call her name. Anya. The little girl whose name chimed like a
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