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must keep up to discover them.
    He paused briefly to inspect the sanctuary of a small temple to Savras in the center of town, expecting any survivors to be there. In the company of its stained glass and marble floors, he felt something familiar, fleeting memories picking at his mind but dodging recognition. The temple itself seemed to be the only place untouched by spilled blood or signs of violence, yet it held the most ominous chill, as if any connection to its divine patron had been severed and replaced by a void.
    Quinsareth was reminded of a monastery on the River of Swords, hundreds of miles away, similarly left hollow one day, its charred remains no doubt grown over by now. Those who walked the paths of Hoar rarely stayed in one place for long. That place though, had seemed hundreds of years old the first time he’d entered. The day he left was the last day he’d set eyes on any structure devoted to his god. Faith and service had come naturally to him, and Hoar was not a deity strict in the observance of rituals or rites. Though priesthood had never called to him, Hoar had.
    Quinsareth found the eastern gate in the same condition as the western, except open and swinging, banging together like loose shutters on an open window. Logfell was desolate, displaying its wounds on every street corner, moaning as the windy breath of the coming storm blew among its orphaned lanes and austere buildings.
    He studied the ground and the footprints he found there. The clawed prints of several gnolls and the heavy, sunken tread of an ogre confirmed the presence of possible attackers or even scavengers but did not explain the total lack of traces of them within the town. The prints showed them moving east, skirting the edges of the forest. His instinct was to follow them, as he’d always done, but something kept drawing his gaze to the forest, its dark depths hiding secrets, its twisted and misshapen trees calling to that dormant chill running in his blood.
    He forced his eyes and thoughts away from the forest. Reaching within himself, he disappeared into the swift embrace of the Shadow Fringe. He followed his instincts and avoided that inexplicable dread of whatever lurked among the trees.
     

     
    Sameska had seen to the daily tasks of the temple, forcing herself to remain awake, unable to even imagine sleeping. The others had noticed. She was wearing her hair loose and had let several rites go unsupervised. Normally she insisted on being present, seeming to take joy in the lesser oracles’ minor and admittedly rare mistakes. Nothing could destroy her today. She was invincible and strode confidently through the corridors of the temple.
    It was late afternoon, and she could not wait to be left alone again. The other oracles had worried and fussed after finding her unconscious in the rune circle that morning. She’d wanted nothing to do with them, refusing their help and their questions, stubbornly maintaining her composure and the secret of her visions.
    The attitudes of those around her that day had changed. Things were different, somehow, and rumors wound their way among the members of the church and the citizenry alike. The blush was spreading, and those who’d always been looked to for guidance were silent.
    Sameska pitied their blindness and looked forward to the morrow when she would make them see, but she needed time for the magic and communion with her god. She made her way to the sanctuary after closing the temple’s doors. Dreslya, the most vocal of her young rivals, awaited her in the hallway, lit only by the dim gray of a suddenly overcast sky filtering through a window in the eastern wall.
    “High Oracle,” she addressed Sameska and bowed, touching her forehead lightly with both hands as she did so, “I offer my assistance with the Turning of the Circle and beg my lady to grant me such an honor.”
    Sameska stared at the top of Dreslya’s bowed head, unable to suppress the subtle smile that turned the corners of