Diary Entry
It has been one month since the attack on Blackhaven.
The city still smells faintly of ash when the wind shifts in the evening. Repairs are underway everywhere. Hammers ring through the streets from morning until dusk. Broken roofs are being replaced, walls are being rebuilt, and the scorched sections of the outer districts are slowly returning to something resembling normality.
It is strange how quickly people begin to rebuild after catastrophe.
Perhaps that is the only way humans survive.
Blackhaven's total population before the attack was 40,872 people.
After the final counts were made, 438 were confirmed dead.
Another 812 were wounded, though most are expected to recover.
Those numbers feel very precise when written on paper.
But numbers are not people.
The funeral for the fallen was held twelve days ago in the lower field outside the eastern gate. The entire city gathered. Rows of wooden pyres were prepared in advance. Too many of them.
I stood with Father, Mother, and Uncle Ortis while the priests recited prayers for the departed. The smoke rose into the grey sky in long twisting columns. It carried with it the smell of burning wood and something heavier beneath it.
Among the fallen was Hunter Chief Roric Thorne.
His name was spoken last.
When the priests said it aloud, a sound passed through the crowd that I can only describe as a collective breaking.
Roric was well loved.
More than that, he was trusted. Hunters live dangerous lives, but they do so knowing someone capable stands at the front. Everyone saw , felt his threads as he did his best to manage the situation. Evacuate people, direct rescue efforts and even use his abilities to protect people when he could.
Now he is gone.
Jamie stood beside the pyre meant for him while the others burned. She did not cry. She did not speak. She simply stood there with her hands clenched tightly around the endant around her neck, her knuckles were white.
She has not been the same since that day.
Her house was destroyed during the attack. One of the corrupted creatures collapsed through the roof while the fighting spread through that district. Everything that belonged to her family was lost in the fire that followed.
Everything except two things.
Her mother's pendant.
And her father's axe.
She keeps both of them on her person at all times now. The pendant rests against her chest beneath her shirt, and the axe never leaves her side even when she sleeps.
Mother and Father offered to let her stay here at the manor permanently. They told her she was always welcome. That they had always considered her like a daughter.
Jamie did not respond when they said this.
She simply walked into one of the unused rooms and closed the door behind her.
That was where she has been living since.
I have tried to speak with her several times over the past month.
At first I attempted conversations. I asked if she needed anything. I told her she could train with me when she felt ready. I even tried sitting quietly in the room with her once.
None of those attempts were successful.
Jamie. The biggest reaction i can get out of her is a grunt or sigh.
So I have changed my approach.
Each morning afternoon and evening I bring her food and stay with her for a few hours and tell her stories .
Sometimes she eats.
Sometimes she does not.
But I know she's listening. I am not sure if this helps her in any way. Still, it feels wrong to stop.
The rest of the city seems trapped somewhere between shock and denial.
People move. They work. They repair their homes and reopen their shops. Yet there is a quiet tension beneath everything, as though everyone is waiting for someone to explain what happened.
No explanation has come.
Liora Vale has been among those who suffered the most.
Her lover, Gael, was one of the people infected during the attack. He was among those who turned into one of the corrupted in an attempt to managed the situation and had to be killed during the fighting.
She broke down when she saw his corpse.
Since then she has rarely left her home.
Kev has been trying to console her. I have seen him walking beside her in silence through the market streets. Sometimes he carries baskets for her even though she seems barely aware of his presence.
I do not know if his efforts are helping.
Grief appears to be a strange and deeply personal experience not unlike the depression I felt in my past life.
The new Hunter Chief has already been appointed.
The position now belongs to Old Man Garrett.
The appointment was made only three days after Roric's funeral. According to Father, the hunters needed leadership immediately to prevent confusion and disorder.
Garrett accepted the role.
However, he did not seem pleased about it.
I watched the announcement in the main square. Garrett stood before the hunters with his arms folded and a deeply irritated expression on his face. When Father formally declared him the new chief, the old man only sighed and muttered something about being "too old for the weight of responsibility."
Nevertheless, he accepted.
Since then he has already begun reorganizing patrol rotations. He also told eve more jokes in order to liven the mood. Winter has ended and so the beasts that have woken from hibernation will be hungry and will wander in search of food.
Despite his jovial nature, he is competent.
Father has not slept properly since the attack. Not that he needs to.
Most nights he leaves the manor before sunrise and does not return until late evening. Instead of issuing orders l, he has been personally assisting with reconstruction throughout the city.
I have at seen him carrying lumber with the builders, clearing rubble from collapsed homes, and even helping repair sections of the outer wall.
He also spends a great deal of time visiting the families of those who were killed. I accompany him at times.
During these visits he apologizes.
He tells them his absence during the attack was his responsibility. That if he had been present, perhaps the losses would not have happened.
The people always respond the same way.
They tell him the attack was not his fault.
They tell him that no one could have predicted such a thing.
They tell him not to blame himself.
Father listens politely.
Then he apologizes again.
Mother says this is simply how he processes failure.
I am not certain that word applies here. Deep down, despite what they say, they blame their lord for the things that happened.
Uncle Ortis has also remained in Blackhaven since the attack.
He spends most of his time in Mother's room, speaking quietly with her about matters they rarely discuss in my presence.
Beth was moved to the manor shortly after the battle as well.
Her newborn daughter, the one Uncle Ortis 'borrowed' during the chaos, has been placed together with my newborn sister.
Uncle Ortis has said very little about the children.
He only told Father and Mother that both the infant and his newly born niece are… special.
He said he would explain the details later when the situation has stabilized. Though my parents seem to have an idea of what he meant.
That in itself is unusual.
A week ago, a group of men arrived in Blackhaven wearing grey uniforms.
They identified themselves as members of the Inquisition.
From what I overheard while Father spoke with them, they were dispatched to investigate the events surrounding the attack. I don't know why they were dispatched so late but I have a feeling that if was father who used his authority as a member of the Privy Council to prevent them from coming while he himslef gathered information about the situation.
These Inquisitors have been questioning witnesses and examining the battlefield beyond the city walls.
I have avoided speaking with them.
From what I have observed and the research I did, in the pursiut of truth the Inquisition has a reputation of making interactions undesirable.
They were still conducting their investigation three days ago when something unexpected occurred.
A group of hunters returned from the forest carrying a covered stretcher.
They requested to see Father immediately.
I happened to be nearby when the cloth covering the body was pulled back.
The corpse beneath it was disfigured beyond regognition with its hands missing, its crown was torn open and its brain was missing as well as its face looking like melted wax. Its heart was missing as well and its entrails were.... a grotesque mutation I cnnot describe with words .
However, the Inquisitors claimed they had confirmed the identity.
They said it belonged to Sigmund Kilgowe.
The Grand Maker.
SK....so he had been killed too.
They had found the body several miles beyond the forest's edge near a broken down wodden structure and amidst overturned earth and a destroyed area.
Father thanked them and ordered the remains to be handled respectfully before they were taken away. I met Jamie standing at the door to her room. She said SK had been killed to, not a question but a matter of fact. I nodded and she pursed her lips, turned and entered her room.
SK had been renowed Artificer who disappeared over a decade ago and had been a wanted man in several regions for reasons that remain unclear to me.
His death will start a number of investigations into the 'why' of the matter.
This entry has become so messy. No not messy, robotic. Recording events accurately is useful for organizing thoughts.
But I find myself struggling to determine what I actually feel about the things that have happened.
Four hundred and thirty-eight people died during the attack.
When I consider that fact, I do not feel the sadness I assume most people would.
Instead I simply recognize the event as misfortune.
A tragedy.
Something that occurred.
I recognise the fact of misfortune and not the sorrow of misfortune itself.
Still...
When I see Liora grieving Gael, something unpleasant twists in my chest.
When I see Father blaming himself for events he could not control, I feel… irritation perhaps. Or concern.
And when I think about Jamie sitting alone in that room with her father's axe resting across her knees…
Something in me feels...heavy.
There is also SK.
No one grieved his death.
No one mourned him.
Did he have a family? Surely someone out there. If not it was up to me and Jamie, his students. But Jamie is already going through a lot. And I....
...I don't know how I feel.
There are two deaths that trouble my thoughts more than the others.
Roric Thorne.
And Sigmund Kilgowe.
I think I might be feeling sad about them.
But I cannot say for certain whether this is the sorrow of misfortune.
I have never grieved before.
So I suppose I would have no way of recognizing the feeling even if it were present.
What I do know for certain is that all of this, this death, this sorrow, this misfortune is simply a part of the unfairness of the world.
For now, I will simply continue observing.
Perhaps understanding will come later.