Starkeeper of the Fractured Crown

The warlock, a male, had only been partially skinned, but by the chunks of charred flesh, I assumed he had been burned as well. His ears had even been docked. He was missing fingers, half of his right leg, and they had cut a hole into his abdomen where his guts now trickled out to the ground below.

He might have been alive earlier today, but there was no way to truly tell now.

The wolf, I had to force myself to look at her. Her ribs had been broken and splayed open to either side of her, showing the crowd her still beating heart. Her legs and arms had been snapped and twisted in grotesque ways, to show the world what she was. It was Raphael’s clever way of showing us what species hung before us.

She was still crying, whimpering, begging someone to help her.

Nailed to each of them were signs.

The Fae’s sign read‘WAR’.

The warlock’s sign read‘IS’.

And the wolf’s sign read‘COMING’.

“This isn’t normal, is it?”

I shook my head, keeping in my emotions, keeping my expression clear of any anger or fear I felt. “No,” I said evenly. “No, this is not normal.” Why? Why make such a declaration? Were the humans declaring war on those species’ specifically or were they declaring war in general?

If so, why? We couldn’t survive a war. We had nothing. We were nothing compared to any other species in existence.

Nothing.

Which led me to wonder why none of the other species had tried to attack after hearing what we did to their people. They had to have known about the witches, at least one person had to have known about the witches or I was sure someone would have attacked Terigard by now.

How long had the magic been malfunctioning here though? And if it had been like that for a while, allowing Raphael to kill these people, why hadn’t Cole known about it? Why were people still coming here?

“I’m sorry.”

I didn’t need his apologies, his sympathy. Especially coming from a man who had probably done this to a considerable amount of people himself. It meant nothing.

Condemnation had come to be after the War of Ruin. The Gerodia family would have never instilled it ifCaduto hadn’t shattered into different continents. There was too much room for others to come and stop them, but once Caduto fractured, this is one of the many horrible things that had come from it.

Everyone in the world knew not to ever step foot in Terigard or Oridian.

Maybe they hadn’t come here.

What if they had been hunted down just like how the Fallen hunted others down?

My theory was looking more and more plausible with each passing second, but that didn’t answer the blaringly obvious question; why wasn’t anyone doing anything about it?

“People of magic or people who break the law end up here,” I whispered, rubbing my chest as my heart threatened to escape.

Puzzles. I loved solving puzzles. When the pieces started to align, I got a sort of high from it. The same feeling I got when my fear spiked. Maybe a little less. “I think that these people were hunted down.”

He looked over, his expression hard, unwavering. Too much of a General for where we were standing. “What does that mean?”

I shrugged, trying to act as if this entire thing wasn’t going to give me nightmares tonight. “Everyone in the world knows that magic isn’t allowed here. Everyone knows that Raphael slaughters those with magic blood. Even the best of magic-users have been caught, but there hasn’t been a magical person on those crosses in the last six months because they know not to come here.”

I’ve known my entire life that humans were nothingcompared to everyone else in this world, so why hadn’t I figured out long ago that I was asking all the wrong questions?

If we were so weak and we were killing so many of them, why not just destroy us? What were they so afraid of that they wouldn’t stop Raphael?

Cole lifted his chin, nostrils flaring as if he were a hound who caught a scent. “Humans can’t just break into the other courts, not without magic, and even then, they would be caught immediately.”

Yeah, exactly.

My heart was thundering as I grabbed his hand, trying to regain his attention, toseethe truth in my words. I had to tell him. I had to tell someone. “The witches never left,” I breathed out just as a scream rang through the city.