Venn had seen plenty of injured people in her time as a healer, but this was on a different level.

  They'd barricaded themselves in what had been Falun's bakery, though it currently served as more of a fortress made of furniture and stubborness. The baker, another prisoner and one of the few who'd resisted the Suggestion through what he claimed was "sheer bloody-minded stubbornness and a lifelong distrust of happiness," was now jamming bread paddles through door handles with the skill that came from years of dealing with difficult dough.

  The other survivors helped where they could. An elderly merchant nailed boards across windows, muttering about how this wasn't what retirement was supposed to look like. A mother clutched two children while pushing a flour barrel against the door, telling them it was just another game, the kind where staying quiet meant winning. Three wounded Crimson Hand soldiers who'd decided being prisoners was better than their previous occupation helped with anything that could be put in front of doors and windows.

  Venn's leg throbbed in rhythm with her heartbeat, which was considerably faster than what she'd learned was healthy. Every movement sent fresh waves of pain up her thigh, but that was nothing compared to what was happening outside.

  The Suggested villagers did their best to finish their work. They pressed against windows and doors, smiling those empty smiles, humming three simple notes. Their fingernails broke against the boards. Their knuckles split from pounding. They didn't care. They just kept smiling, kept humming, kept trying to get in with the patient persistence of the deeply disturbed.

  "This is folly," Saren said, standing in the center of the room like a monument to battle. His lance remained still, but Venn could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers kept adjusting their grip. ?They'll break through eventually."

  "We hold them off," Reyn said with a shrug. Good Deeds rested against her shoulder, and Venn noticed blood seeping through tears in the Bormecian’s leather pants. Not all of it was hers, which somehow made it worse.

  "Hold them off?" Saren turned, and his helmet caught the lamplight in a way that made him look less like a hero and more like something heroes fought. "Why? They're already dead. Whatever that spell has done to them, they won't recover. We're just delaying the inevitable."

  "Death is inevitable for all of us." Reyn's voice was calming to listen to, Venn realized. ?All we can do is to delay it. These people still have hope to delay it a little bit longer.?

  "I know how this ends." Saren gestured toward the windows where faces pressed against gaps in the boards, still smiling even as splinters embedded in their cheeks. "Their minds are gone. We could end this in minutes if you'd stop pretending they can be saved."

  "They are people."

  "They used to be people. Now they're barely weapons."

  "So kill them all?" Reyn shrugged an eyebrow. ?That’s your grand, legendary... Dragoon-solution??

  "It's simple. Effective."

  "And practical, sure.? Reyn considered this for a second, and shook her head. ?Still, it’s murder."

  "It's mercy."

  Randulph cleared his throat from where he sat slumped against a wall, looking like he'd aged a decade in the last hour. "If I might interject—"

  "No," both warriors said simultaneously.

  The wizard sighed and went back to staring at his shaking hands, probably wondering why he hadn't become a librarian like his mother wanted.

  That's when Venn smelled the smoke.

  It started subtle, just a hint of burning wood that could have been from any hearth. Then it grew stronger, accompanied by an orange glow creeping under the door. Someone outside laughed, and it wasn't the empty laughter of the Suggested. It was sharp, victorious.

  "They're burning us out," the baker said with the calm of someone who'd accepted that his day had gone completely sideways. "My grandfather built this place. Survived three wars, two floods, and that incident with the possessed cheese. Now it's going to burn because someone can't handle a proper siege."

  The smoke thickened. Children started coughing. The mother pulled them closer, covering their faces with her skirt. One of the reformed Crimson Hand soldiers stood up, then sat back down, realizing there was nowhere to go.

  "We need to leave," Reyn said.

  "Into that?" Saren pointed at the windows where the Suggested pressed thicker now, drawn by the smoke and flames. "They'll tear us apart. At least these people. I’m sure you’d manage."

  "Then we go through them."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Finally, sense."

  "Without killing them."

  Saren's laugh was sharp as his lance point. "You're delusional."

  "Maybe." Reyn was already busy preparing and opening for escape. "I can’t not try."

  "You're trying to save corpses that don't know they're dead yet!"

  The argument might have continued, but the door chose that moment to catch fire properly. The kind of fire that engulfed anything wood-related before anyone could react.

  Saren grunted, and moved.

  One moment he stood arguing with Reyn, the next he'd kicked through the weakened door in an explosion of burning splinters and righteousness. The Suggested villagers closest to the door didn't have time to react before his lance took them through the chest, two at once, lifting them off their feet with disturbing ease. They kept smiling as they died.

  "Stop it!" Reyn lunged after him, but more Suggested poured through the broken doorway, still humming, reaching for anyone they could grab.

  Venn watched Saren work and understood why Dragoons were legends. He didn't just fight; he conducted a symphony of destruction. His lance moved in perfect arcs, every thrust and sweep measured. Bodies fell around him like wheat before a scythe. The Suggested kept coming, walking over their dead neighbors, still smiling, and Saren kept killing with the efficiency of someone who believed emotion was a luxury he couldn't afford.

  Reyn crashed into him from the side, Good Deeds clanging against his lance hard enough to send sparks flying. "Stop!"

  "They're. Already. Dead." Each word punctuated by a blocked strike.

  "They're people!"

  "So are those not under the spell!"

  They fought then, hero against hero, while Suggested villagers pressed in from all sides and flames climbed the walls. Venn had seen plenty of violence in her short stint at the Path, but nothing quite like this. Reyn fought with controlled fury, trying to disable rather than kill, using Good Deeds' flat to stun, its pommel to strike. Saren fought with a coldness, every move as to create maximum casualties with minimum effort.

  A Suggested villager grabbed Venn's injured leg. She screamed, kicking with her good foot, catching them in the face. They didn't let go. Their nose broke, blood streaming, but they kept pulling, kept smiling, kept humming those three notes through broken teeth.

  Turnip appeared from nowhere, tiny teeth finding the villager's wrist. Even demon rabbits had their limits, though, and the Suggested didn't feel pain. They kept pulling. As did Turnip. Flesh and meat tore loose, without anyone flinching.

  The baker's bread paddle came down hard, and the villager finally let go, though they tried to crawl forward even with a clearly broken skull.

  "This is insane!" the baker shouted over the chaos. "They're insane! We're all insane!"

  He wasn't wrong, Venn figured.

  The fire was spreading faster now, smoke thick enough to make breathing an achievement. The mother had gotten her children to a window that wasn’t crowded by Suggested, trying to break through the boards. The elderly merchant was on the floor, whether from smoke or Suggestion Venn couldn't tell. The Crimson Hand deserters had made a break for it and were immediately swarmed.

  Reyn and Saren's battle had moved outside, visible through the burning doorway. She could see Reyn taking hits she should have dodged, trying to protect Suggested villagers from Saren's lance. It was obvious that Saren's frustration mounting as Reyn kept interfering with his attacks.

  "Stop defending them!" Saren's voice carried even over the screaming and flames.

  "Stop murdering them!" Reyn shot back, Good Deeds sweeping low to trip him. A suggested came at her at just the wrong time, and was a victim of instinct as Good Deeds split his torso. Reyn sighed. ?Darn.?

  Saren almost chuckled. ?See? Why do this the hard way??

  He jumped, of course he jumped, up and over her swing, landing behind a group of Suggested who immediately turned on him. His lance took three before Reyn crashed into him again.

  Randulph crawled over to Venn, his academic robes now more ash than fabric. "I have an idea."

  "Does it involve not dying?"

  "I’d hope so." He coughed, wiping soot from his eyes. "You have magic. I mean... healing magic is still magic, right?"

  "I can't fight with this." She gestured at her mangled leg.

  "Not fight. Amplify." His hands shook as he pulled her closer, away from the spreading flames. "Mass Suggestion is wide but shallow, and whatever this is can’t be different in that regard. Like a lake that covers everything but only ankle-deep. If I could channel through you, boost my own Suggestion with your magical resonance..."

  "You want to out-Suggest the Suggestion?"

  "When you say it like that it sounds stupid, but it might work. I can only do one or two at a time myself, if I’m not disturbed."

  A burning beam crashed down where they'd been sitting moments before. Through the smoke, Venn could see more Suggested pressing in, could hear Reyn and Saren still fighting each other while fighting for their lives.

  "It is stupid," she said.

  "Yes."

  "Insanely stupid."

  Randulph smiled. "Absolutely."

  "Let's do it."

  Randulph's relief was palpable. "Oh thank the gods, I thought you'd be sensible about this."

  He grabbed her hands, and Venn felt her magic stir; the small, useful gift that let her accelerate healing, sense infection, understand what bodies needed. The power of making people better.

  "This might hurt," Randulph warned.

  Venn gritted her teeth. "Everything already hurts."

  "Fair point."

  He began pulling on her magic, and Venn discovered there were entirely new categories of hurt she hadn't known existed. It felt like someone was pulling threads out through her skin, if the threads were made of lightning and invisible needles.

  Through tears and smoke, she saw Randulph's eyes begin to glow with a light without a source. His voice, when he spoke, harmonized with itself in ways that suggested reality was taking notes for later correction.

  "SLEEP," he said, and the word had weight, substance. A heavy echo of something from a different time and place.

  The nearest Suggested villagers dropped immediately. Then the next wave. Then the next.

  But the others kept coming, kept smiling, kept humming.

  "It's not enough," Randulph gasped, pulling harder on her magic. "The spell is so wide."

  Venn felt her magic draining, felt herself getting lighter, less substantial. Black spots danced in her vision that had nothing to do with smoke. "Then pull harder."

  "It could kill you."

  "Not pulling harder will definitely kill us."

  Outside, Saren had stopped trying to avoid Reyn and was simply killing everything that moved, accepting her interference as a battlefield condition. Reyn had blood running down her face, her movements slower, still trying to block Saren while avoiding attacks toward herself. Venn could barely see her face, working hard to avoid Rage.

  The bakery was fully ablaze now. The ceiling groaned opinions about structural integrity.

  "Do it," Venn said.

  Randulph pulled harder.

  The world went white, then black, then a color that didn't have a name because colors weren't supposed to scream.

  The last thing Venn heard before consciousness rudely abandoned her was the sudden, complete silence as every Suggested villager in Falun stopped humming those three notes at exactly the same moment.

  Then nothing but the crackle of flames and the sound of bodies hitting cobblestones like rain made of meat, wood and steel.