Hyona PoV
When the sounds finally stopped, I peered outside. It was quiet. More than usual. No church bells. No frantic shouts. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
The hearth was dead. Gray ash spilled across the hearthstones, and the cold had already crept inside, biting and hollow. The heavy front door hung off its iron hinges, splintered down the center, letting in the gray, suffocating twilight.
"Mama?" I whispered, my voice sounding impossibly small in the empty room.
No one answered.
I rubbed my shoulders. What happened? Where was everyone?
I tiptoed to the door of our cabin and gasped as I saw parts of the village had gone up in flames.
Thick, oily smoke billowed from shattered rooftops, turning the pristine white sky into a bruised, ash-choked gray. The church bell tower was gone—sheared completely off its base by a brutal heave of earth, its bronze bell resting half-buried in a crater of shattered masonry and scorched snow.
