Excerpt from Herald of a New Era

As the edges of the papers singed and fell to their fate, the ink on the pages written into alchemical and runic patterns gave out a hiss when the fire touched it. Uvior watched them burn, glad they were screaming.

He shook his head. No, he felt sorry for the ink and the parchment, being forced to depict such evil things. The papers whistled a terrible, haunting tune as they perished. A high-pitched whine that matched the tone of the tinnitus after an explosion, or a tea kettle ready to pour.

More than that though, as they burned, Uvior could feel the radiating magical energy fade. The vibrations in his bones faded to nothing, the onset of relief washing over him as quickly as the fire was spreading. It seemed that inscribing pages with runes that were capable of siphoning magic from children was something the paper and ink did not like. This would have been a revelation for a scholar, but to a soldier, it was just another pyre. An altar to the bittersweetness of having free will.

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