The central lands rejoiced for night and days countless over the Treaty of Fahl, signed between the Saph Empire and the Griil Federation. Prior to the stalemate, the two superpowers had been embroiled in a half-century war over trading rights and territory—greed, as was typical of man. In time, however, they ultimately aligned in the idea that there was no need for any more bloodshed. With the cooperation of the Rukh Empire, which opened its lands to shared trade routes, what could be called peace was finally achieved.
And so, the nights grew quieter.
The air never cleaner.
Peace—the people called it. Peace—for some.
In a rural village, where the faintest of innovations had yet to reach it, such peace never arrived.
Iron-clad men descended upon their puny settlement, their laughter carrying through the dirt paths as they tore through what little the village possessed. The handful of guards stationed by the local lord had only nothing but worn farming tools and rushed training at their disposal. They did not anticipate a bandit raid to occur amidst the celebrations of peace.
"This shithole barely has anything," the leader sneered, a stout, bald man gripping his blade. "Do it anyway. Leave no soul alive."
His men followed suit. Villagers were cut down as if they were fleeing livestock. Some were granted the mercy of a swift death. Others were not. Shrieks of chaos rang out, then were silenced just as quickly.
"Raze it," the leader barked, wiping the blood from his blade using the back of a trembling man collapsed at his feet, groveling for mercy.
The straw homes caught fire with ease. Flames swallowed the village whole. None were spared, and none were left to tell the horror. No dignity was granted. No pride remained. By dawn, nothing stood.
There was no equity in the peace the people of the highlands claimed.
The Rukh Empire's expansion of trade had drawn caravans across once-quiet lands—and with them came outlaws. Bandits set up camps along these routes, preying on villages unfortunate enough to lie along paths meant for progress. Trade flourished, and peace prospered.
And the cost was paid by those too small to matter.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The village had long smoldered after the screams came to a halt.
Ash drifted through the air like dirty snow, settling over collapsed roofs, and bodies where they fell. The fire had already burnt itself out, leaving nothing but faint heat trapped in the soil, and the stench of burn clinging to everything.
The mage stroked his long, white beard which seemed to dangle in each motion. He walked with a staff, his boots crunching the pitiful earth of char and rubble.
The more he saw, the worse it was.
A woman lay collapsed to the ground, clung tightly to her infant. A pitchfork had pierced through both.
"How pitiful," he sighed, waving away the flies already feasting upon her eyes.
He did not come looking for survivors. Villages like this had become common along the trade routes—far too common to mourn individually.
Then he heard it.
Not a cry.
A sound too small for that.
He stopped.
Beneath the remains of a collapsed wall, half-buried under ash and timber, something moved.
The mage waved his wooden staff, uttering, "Levitas".
The rubble lifted as if free from weight, stone and timber suspended themselves in the air.
A child.
The boy could not have been more than a few years old. Pale, yellow hair was stiff with dried blood, his face streaked with soot. When the mage met his eyes, he found only a hollow stillness—as though life itself had been stripped away.
Somehow, the fire had spared him.
The mage stared for a long moment.
He had seen this before. Too many times.
He could leave. Someone else might come. Or no one would.
With a quiet sigh, he slipped his cloak from his shoulders and wrapped it around the boy. The child stirred, small fingers clutching weakly at the fabric as if afraid it might disappear.
"Unlucky," the mage murmured, not unkindly. "Or perhaps not."
He rose slowly, lifting the boy into his arms. The village behind him was nothing but ruin now, already being reclaimed by silence.
As he turned away, the mage did not look back.