“Just over three thousand,” Brother Qown said. “We were lucky. Mereina’s normal population was closer to fifteen thousand, but a large percentage of the population had already left to avoid the baron’s overzealous witch hunt.”

“Still that’s—” Kihrin found himself at a loss to express how hollow he felt at the news.

She gave him a shrewd glance. “You should know what you’re up against. That bottle of blue smoke wasn’t unique.”

“Anyone who would use a weapon like this is a monster.”

“You’ll hear no argument from me,” Janel said, her voice soft.

Kihrin leaned forward in his seat and scrubbed at his eyes with his palms. “It’s not right. I still don’t know how many died in the Capital. I don’t know if you’ve heard—”

“I heard,” she said. “What happened in the Capital wasn’t your fault.”

“If I hadn’t come back—” He stared into the fireplace and left the sentence hanging.

“If you hadn’t come back, Gadrith would still be ‘alive’—or whatever you want to call his particular exemption from decomposition.”

Kihrin frowned. “That almost sounds like you knew him.”

“Maybe I did, but we’d be jumping ahead of the story, wouldn’t we? Let’s let Brother Qown continue.” She smiled. “He loves this part.”

“I don’t,” Brother Qown protested. “It’s very sad.”

But he was quick to start reading.

Qown’s Turn. Mereina, Barsine Banner, Jorat, Quur.

Brother Qown fought the temptation to fall to the ground and pray to Selanol when he saw sunlight. It meant the smoke hadn’t reached the town. There would be survivors.

At least, there would be a few survivors.

A small crowd waited at the town’s edges. Not more than a few dozen people who, for various reasons, hadn’t been near the fairgrounds when disaster struck. Not all those had survived either. At least a few townsfolk had braved the cloud seeking friends and family. Their bodies just inside the witch-smoke border told their fate.

Besides the few human survivors, animals fared better, some innate instinct encouraging an earlier flight. Dholes wandered the main street in packs, upset and ill-tempered. All six elephants used at the fairgrounds had escaped, wandering up to familiar townsfolk for reassurances or making calls to one another. Some horses made it out too, although many more died in fenced corrals.