The fairy Aldric hated night patrols.
It wasn't so much the fatigue, or even the danger, real as it was in these times of war, that truly bothered him. It was more that particular kind of solitude the darkness imposed, that silence stretching on for hours, never broken by anything but the crunch of his own boots against the rocky ground.
He'd joined Stigma's ranks three years earlier, on his king's orders. Since then, he'd seen far more than he ever would have wished to see in a single lifetime, but none of it had yet managed to fully dull the strict discipline drilled into him from the moment he'd enlisted.
Observe. Report. Never engage alone.
These were the three commandments hammered relentlessly into every member of the reconnaissance teams, and Aldric followed them to the letter, even after three years spent crossing deserted roads in search of suspicious demonic activity.
That evening, his patrol had led him to the outskirts of a small settlement he didn't yet know, a town nestled among several hills that seemed, at first glance, just as peaceful as any other village spared by the fighting.
Fondval, the map he carried on him indicated.
He hadn't planned on lingering longer than necessary. A simple routine pass, a quick check to make sure no hostile presence lurked in the area, before heading back to camp, where a hot meal and a few well-earned hours of sleep were hopefully waiting for him.
It was while discreetly skirting the village's edges, as procedure required, that he noticed movement near a small, isolated house set apart from the main dwellings.
Aldric froze instinctively, pressing himself against the trunk of a nearby tree, his heart already starting to race.
A figure had just stepped out of the house, carrying a bucket toward a nearby well, a perfectly ordinary gesture, almost mundane.
Except that figure was nothing human.
Its skin, in the faint moonlight, bore an unusual grayish hue, And on closer inspection, it wasn't skin but a kind of fur. Its face looked more like a white mask surrounded by cotton, half-hidden beneath a hood it had clearly pulled up in a hurry.
And above all, its body gave off that dark magical energy Aldric had learned to recognize over his three years of service. For Aldric, there was no doubt about it, this was a demon. It didn't seem particularly powerful, but a demon was still a demon. And there was one thing above all that he couldn't wrap his head around.
It's not unheard of for demons to linger in pillaged villages, but this one is in good condition and the population is still alive. What does that mean?
The answer came to him almost immediately.
The villagers are hiding him.
Aldric held his breath, staying perfectly still in midair, while the creature filled its bucket without ever suspecting his presence, then calmly returned to the house it had come from, closing the door behind it with a discretion that betrayed, more than anything else, a deeply ingrained habit of concealment.
He stayed hidden for several more long minutes before slowly and quietly moving closer to the house the demon had entered. He circled around it a little, trying to find a spot to look inside, and eventually managed to.
Positioning himself at the edge of a window, he saw something that left him stunned.
"Are you sure it was a good idea to go out?" a small boy with blond hair and red eyes asked.
"Don't worry, Rou, I need to be useful for something, at least," the demon answered, pulling back its hood.
"It's way too risky, please don't do it again. I'm sure the other villagers would understand, but there are more and more travelers passing through because of the war."
Ican't believe it, Aldric thought. Not only is he hiding among them, he even has the population's full cooperation.
For Aldric, there was no longer the slightest doubt. Fondval wasn't just some village unlucky enough to have crossed paths with a demon. It was a village of traitors who had willingly chosen to protect an enemy of humanity.
That was too much for Aldric. He had seen what he needed to see.
Observe. Report. Never engage alone.
He'd done the first part. Now came the second.
This village of traitors was going to disappear, and they were going to make sure of it.
*
The nearest advanced Stigma camp was a day's march away, or two hours' flight by air, a makeshift palisade hastily built around an old abandoned garrison, gathering perhaps two hundred soldiers under the command of Morticiel, a member of the goddess race.
Like most of his kind, he had a youthful appearance despite almost certainly being hundreds of years old, and white wings rested on his back.
Aldric found him in his command tent, hunched over a map dotted with markings and various annotations, a cup of cold tea abandoned beside him.
"Sir Morticiel," Aldric said, snapping to attention. "I have a report to make. Urgent."
Morticiel raised his head, his tired but still sharp eyes settling on the sergeant. "Speak."
"A village, about a day's march from here. Fondval. I spotted a demon there, sir. Concealed with the help of the residents, apparently for some time now."
Morticiel straightened up fully, his boredom evaporating at once, replaced by sharp attention.
"Are you certain of what you saw?"
"Absolutely certain, captain. Skin entirely covered in white fur, a face that looked like a mask, and there's no mistaking the magical energy that was coming off him. He was drawing water from a well, like any ordinary villager. No apparent hostility, but..."
"But a demon is still a demon," Morticiel finished, his tone hardening. "And every demon deserves death."
"Exactly, captain. And that's not the only issue."
Morticiel waited for him to continue.
"The residents are hiding him willingly. I saw a child speaking with him. They know he's there. They know what he is, and they continue to protect him regardless."
Morticiel stayed silent for a few seconds before turning his gaze back to the map.
"Then there's nothing left to discuss. That village must be destroyed."
Aldric nodded.
"I agree."
Morticiel rose from his chair.
"Summon Montante and Goldard. We'll settle the details of the operation."
*
A little later, the command tent held all three officers gathered around the same map.
Montante, a fairy with slender wings and short hair, stood beside the table, arms crossed. Next to her stood Goldard, a giant whose imposing size kept him from fitting inside the tent. He had to take part in the meeting from outside.
Morticiel remained standing before them while Aldric hung back slightly.
"So the village is willingly protecting a demon?" Montante asked, after hearing Aldric's report.
"Yes," he answered. "I witnessed it directly."
"Then the situation is simple," the fairy declared. "The village must be exterminated."
Goldard nodded immediately.
"A demon hidden among humans, and protected by them. If they've chosen their side, they'll face the consequences."
Aldric could only agree.
"I saw no notable defenses. It's essentially just a farming village."
"How many residents?" Goldard asked.
"Hard to say precisely. But probably over a hundred."
"Only a hundred?" the giant replied with a wicked smile. "Then a few dozen men should more than suffice."
"No need to send more than that," Montante confirmed. "We just need to make sure no one can escape."
Morticiel set a finger on the map.
"We leave the day after tomorrow, at dawn."
He then moved his finger toward the village's various entry points.
"Goldard, you'll take command of the giants tasked with the total destruction of the buildings. You'll stay outside the village and hurl rocks to destroy the structures and eliminate the residents at the same time."
"Understood."
"Montante, you'll take a second unit, part of your fairies will block the escape routes while the rest move into the village to exterminate them directly. No civilian is to leave Fondval."
"Very well."
"As for the demon..."
Morticiel paused briefly.
"If what Aldric said is true, he shouldn't pose any problem. Kill him along with the villagers."
"Understood."
Montante studied the map for a few seconds.
"And if some residents try to negotiate?"
Goldard let out a short laugh.
"There will be nothing to negotiate."
"Exactly," Morticiel answered. "They had a choice. They chose to protect a demon for who knows how long. We have no reason to offer them a second chance."
Aldric nodded.
"I agree."
He thought back to the scene he'd witnessed a few hours earlier. The demon going out to fetch water. The blond boy worrying over him. The villagers who had probably spent years fully aware of what they were hiding.
He no longer felt the slightest hesitation.
These people had chosen to betray Stigma. They had chosen to protect the enemy.
They would now pay for that choice.
Morticiel looked one last time at each person present.
"There's nothing else to discuss, then. Day after tomorrow, Fondval will be completely wiped off the map, and we'll never hear of it again."
No one objected.
"Glory to Stigma!" Morticiel exclaimed.
"Glory to Stigma!" Aldric, Montante, and Goldard repeated.
*
Aldric, who had stayed off to the side throughout the discussion, felt, this time, not unease but a cold satisfaction settle in the pit of his stomach as he heard the final decision.
He had done his duty. He had observed, he had reported, exactly as he'd been taught since the day he enlisted.
And now Stigma would do what needed to be done.
He thought of the villagers he had never met directly, residents he knew nothing about, not even their names, their faces, their personal stories.
None of that mattered.
He thought of the children who were probably sleeping peacefully at this very moment, with no idea of the fate awaiting them in barely forty-eight hours.
That didn't matter either.
They were the children of traitors.
He silently repeated to himself what he'd been taught since his very first day of service.
A demon is an enemy.
Whoever protects one becomes its accomplice.
And an accomplice must be treated as the enemy itself.
This is a war.
Hard choices have to be made. That's how you protect the greater number.
Aldric finally left the tent with a perfectly clear conscience. He felt no regret over his report, and even less over the decision that had just been made.
In two days, Fondval would be just one more village lost in this war.
*
Kilometers away, in a village that knew nothing of the fate that had just been sealed for it, life went on peacefully, unaware of the countdown that had just begun.
Joran fell asleep that night with a smile, relieved to have given his ward a little respite, a few minutes of freedom beneath the stars before having to sink back into shadow and permanent concealment.
Lira closed up shop after a particularly good day of sales, already thinking about the new fabrics she planned to order for the coming season.
Little Elna fell asleep clutching her favorite stone of the day, already dreaming of the next one she'd find tomorrow, determined to proudly show it off to the white-haired traveler who always seemed to appreciate each of her little finds with such genuine enthusiasm.
Rou, for his part, probably fell asleep without suspecting that his worry for the demon he considered one of his own would soon no longer matter in the slightest.
And somewhere in the village inn, Emrys, unable to rest, lay in the darkness, his mind still consumed by the previous night's discovery, not yet realizing that the time he had left to act had, too, just been drastically cut short.
Two days.
That was all that stood between Fondval and the decision that had just been made, kilometers away, by men and non-humans who knew neither its name, nor its people, nor the truth behind the creature they were about to condemn along with an entire innocent village.