The screams tore through the evening air like knives.
Ashvale burned. The border town that had stood for three hundred years, where catkin and humans once traded grain and stories, now drowned in blood and ash.
Smoke coiled into the darkening sky, thick and black, carrying the stench of burning wood and flesh.
"Run! They're coming from the east gate!"
A woman clutched her child, a small catkin boy with trembling ears flat against his head. She stumbled over cobblestones slick with blood, her bare feet leaving red prints.
Behind her, the Duke's guards swept through the market square like a plague, their armor gleaming orange in the firelight.
"Demon kin!" A guard's voice boomed, raw with hatred. "Filthy beasts! This is human land!"
His sword came down. A merchant—old, his gray fur matted with sweat—raised his hands. "Please, we've done nothing—"
The blade split his skull. Brain matter sprayed across a vegetable cart. The body crumpled, twitching.
