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Scriber—” Logan began, but I barrelled onwards, the words tumbling out of my mouth.
    “I don’t like this woman any more than you do, but do you really believe that she travelled almost a hundred leagues just to amuse herself at our expense? Are any of you lackwitted enough to really believe that? Or are you just scared to believe that she might be telling the truth?” Dead silence answered, occasionally broken by my own panting; I had used all my breath shouting.
    Finally, Logan spoke up again. “Yer sayin’ we should leave our homes, Scriber?” he asked, uncertainty creeping into his voice.
    “Father in the Sky, yes!” I almost had them; I could see it in their faces. “Don’t you see? If we leave and it is nothing, we can come back. If we stay and the danger is real…” I spread my arms. “They don’t teach us how to bring back the dead at the Academy.”
    “I… I expect that’s true…” Logan looked as though he still wanted to disagree, but couldn’t think how. He was too late. The others had taken him to be conceding defeat, and people were already returning home to gather their things. Logan’s wife hurried past him, dragging Jason with her, and Logan reluctantly followed. It was satisfying to watch him scurry away in defeat, though I wished the circumstances were different.
    Soon the square was empty but for myself, Bryndine, and her soldiers. She stayed where she was, and I made no move to approach her. For a long moment, she looked at me, as though searching for something. Uncomfortable with the scrutiny, I turned and strode towards my door.
    After five years of hiding, it seemed the time had come to leave Waymark behind and rejoin the world. Whether I wanted to or not.

Chapter Five
     
    The controversy surrounding Bryndine Errynson began when she was seventeen years old. Like many members of the nobility, at sixteen she enrolled at the Academy. While most only undertook a single year of general study, Bryndine wished to stay on and earn her pin. This became an issue when she declared her chosen School: the School of Warfare, training ground for the finest military officers in the Kingsland.
    The reaction was immediate and extreme. A woman becoming a soldier was seen as a violation of the Mother’s way, and the Children incited the people into outrage over it. Bryndine was pulled out of the Academy at the order of King Syrid; Millum Wren, the Master of Warfare, was ejected from the Council for accepting her entry into his School.
    However, Wren was later made High Commander of the First Company in Three Rivers, and there he continued to teach Bryndine. Seven years later, Bryndine Errynson had received the same training as any graduate of the School of Warfare, lacking only the pin to make it official.
    — From Dennon Lark’s Life of Bryndine Errynson
     
    The sound was deafening. It exploded through the town, a crash of thunder so close it might have come from inside my own home. Leaving the drawers of my desk wide open and dropping an armful of writing supplies that I had been about to stow in my bag, I rushed to the door.
    My hand froze on the handle. I could hear shouts and screams outside, and the panicked whinnying of horses; my fingers trembled on the cold brass, refusing to do as they were told. I was suddenly aware of a thick lump of fear in my belly; it had been growing there for some time, I think, but I had been ignoring it, telling myself that we would be gone before an attack ever came.
    I waited there with my hand on the door, listening, and after a short time, the cries outside died down. I heard muffled commands being given, but nothing like what I imagined a battle would sound like. I took a deep breath to steady myself and opened the door.
    In the darkness outside, it was impossible not to notice the fire before anything else. The town was bathed in angry light and smoke billowed thick and grey around the roof of the Prince’s Rest. The flames were spreading rapidly; a