Dear Reader,
If you had walked through Nevareth's outer districts that morning, you would have sensed it before you saw it, the way tension gathered like storm clouds before breaking.
It began quietly, as most dangerous things do.
In the common markets where displaced families bought bread with coins they couldn't spare, a merchant named Aldus spoke too loudly. Not shouting, not yet, just… projecting. Making sure his words carried to the crowd gathering around his modest stall.
"Two hundred and twenty four souls dead," he said, shaking his head with practiced grief. "Two hundred and more souls burned by fire demons. And who benefits? Who walks free while we bury our children?"
A woman beside him, Goodwife Vena, district organizer, her daughter among the casualties, nodded with tears tracking down weathered cheeks. "The Fire Bride. She brings her cursed magic to our ice-blessed empire, and hell itself follows."
