The last lights of a cold winter evening shone on the ash blonde hair of a young boy. Curious emerald green eyes betrayed wisdom rare for their owner's age, as they dashed within the edges of a heavy tome's pages. Worlds of words formed in the child's mind, telling stories of wise kings and fallen empires. And as his little hands turned the last page, Rall sighed in satisfaction.

"Dad, I have finished the book! Can you teach me magic now?"

"Rall, we've talked about thi-" It was like his father had lost his voice mid-sentence.

"Dad?"

Muffled gasping echoed from behind the door. Rall stood up and ran to the sound.

"DAD?!" Beyond the door, the boy witnessed a figure shrouded in dark shadows. In the figure's hand was a knife, blood slowly trickled down along its sharpened edge. Red drops fell onto the body of a man. Rall recognized his father, on the floor, a cut running across his neck. He was choking on his own blood and struggled for every breath. Soon a puddle of blood covered the floor. Horrified, Rall looked at his father's Fairylight dwindle, the floating orb of golden light slowly going from twenty centimeters wide to a nail-thick speck of gold dust. Then it disappeared.

"D-Dad? What did you do to my dad!?" Still, the figure stood silent. Its head rose to meet the boy's eyes. In a heartbeat, the figure vanished. Rall felt a shiver run through his body, then the coldness of steel on his neck. The boy caught a shrouded head with the tail of his right eye.

"Your father was a bad man. And so he had to die," said a raspy voice, so close to Rall's ears he could feel the strain each word put on the figure's vocal cords.

"Are you a bad boy?" It whispered.

Rall's legs lost their strength. Soon a yellowish liquid wet his pants drops dripping in his father's blood.

He carefully shook his trembling head.

Seconds passed, but to the boy, they felt like years. He noticed the knife was not on his neck anymore, so he slowly turned around. No one else was in the room. His gaze landed on his father's corpse, again. For a light mage, their Fairylight represented both their power and their life. But now the room was dark...

Slowly realization hit him, bit by bit, and tears welled in his eyes. One minute later, a boy's scream was heard through the village of Korn.

***

The sound of a distant storm broke the silence. Some people looked at the horizon with uneasiness, but most focused on the small old stage that stood in the center of Korn.

Village chief Thork Haddok returned their gaze through his single eye. A middle-aged man, burly, tall, with a bald head and a stern expression. In his younger days, he had left the village of Korn to become a knight in the capital of the Kingdom of Alcia, Telessia. Thirty years later, he had come back a rougher man, one who had traded his left eye and his right arm for the stories of many adventures that he would often narrate to the kids in the village.

"People of Korn, my friends, my family, I have called you here in this dark and cold night to bring grave news. As many of you have heard, Theodore Lightson is dead." Hearing those words, the villagers who had earlier refused to believe the rumors felt the weight of the world fall of their shoulders.

"How did he die?" Somebody shouted from the crowd.

"Killed. His son Rall has described a shadow with a knife. I can only guess it was done by a professional." Some people panicked at the notion. It was already bad enough that such an important person had died - the last thing they needed was a killer roaming their lands.

The people of Korn formed a small and tight-knit community - the type where everyone knew everything about anyone. Thus, they did not readily accept outsiders. The Lightsons had been an exception due to Theodore's rare and valuable talents.

"How will we survive the Fog without Lighthouse?" A woman asked from the crowd.

"That is the main issue here," Thork answered, "Theodore was not only a beloved instructor for our children, but he also protected us countless times from the Fog. I still remember when I was just a boy, and we had to abandon the village every time the Fog came south, only to find everything had rotten away and perished when we returned. I swear to you I will do what I can to avoid that outcome, but it will be hard to find a new light mage."

"What about the boy!?" Someone asked.

"Oh stop it, Nancy," another man answered from the crowd with sass in his voice, "we all know he does not have a Fairylight!"

"What do you know? Maybe it's so small that we just didn't notice it! That wouldn't be the first time for you, would it Gerard?" Nancy responded, seemingly used to bickering with Gerard during these gatherings. Many times the villagers had wandered how the couple had been married for almost thirty-five years. Many voices soon joined the conversation, eager to throw their opinions at the wind and propose improbable solutions.

"Friends, please," the village chief said with a powerful voice, silencing the crowd, "Rall is still a boy - let us not place any more weight on the shoulders of a grieving child. Regardless, the kid has not inherited his father's gift - hiding a Fairylight is not something a child can do." A low humming came from the crowd as some people tried to confirm this last piece of information with the people around them. Most did not need confirmation, as Thork Haddok had been all around the Kingdom working with the Knights while they had lived all their lives in a small village in the countryside. If the chief said that Rall was not a light mage, then who were they to object.

"People of Korn, I do have a possible solution to our plight!"

The crowd looked at the muscular one-armed man with renewed hope. "When I was in the Knight's Corp, we used to carry around portable tools that functioned like a pseudo-Lighthouse, since light mages are so rare. Although ten years have passed, I still know some people in the Corps. I could reach Telessia in a couple of weeks and procure one for our village..."

Those more insightful in the crowd could read a 'but' in Thork's voice.

"Friends, you know me. I have never lied to you. A portable Lighthouse is not cheap, and I'm afraid that this year's harvest leaves us with few choices. I could probably exchange some favors to get one for this winter, but it would just be a temporary solution since it requires a constant stream of expensive materials. Besides, I do not feel safe leaving the village for what could end up being a month when a killer is roaming around our lands." Assenting murmurs rose as the crowd discussed for a while.

The burly figure of Bellar Wallyben - the only blacksmith in the village - came closer to the stage. While everyone else wore humble working clothes, which did little to save them from the unforgiving clutches of cold, he was wearing an expensive-looking goat fur coat. Nonetheless, he frequently shivered. Bellar had been the village chief for ten years before Thork had returned to Korn, and he was always ready to challenge his proposals and interfere with his work. He looked up the stage with an arrogant smirk, then turned to the crowd.

"We could always make sacrifices to the Fog as they do in the other villages," he said in a decisive tone.

A collective gasp rose through the air as the mass started vehemently discussing the topic amongst themselves. The former chief looked pleased - generating such powerful emotions in the crowd made him feel powerful.

It had not been the first time that the idea of sacrifices had come up, mainly because of rumors of mixed success coming from neighboring villages of the countryside. The people of Korn had always opposed the idea, preferring to lose their homes and fields instead of their fellow citizens, but they had never faced such precarious times. In the last eight years, the Fog had threatened the village numerous times, but Theodore Lightson had always been there to repelled it with his Lighthouse - a resident light mage was a luxury that most settlements could not afford. Now that Theodore had died, nobody had the strength to come forth and oppose Bellar's proposal outright.

Thork sighed as he earnestly considered his rival's proposal. "While I hate the idea, I cannot deny the possibility. I have seen it work in person. Still, I refuse to believe that this is the right way."

Bellar scoffed in response. "This is no time for weakness, 'chief' - we must do what we can to survive. If the Fog comes and we choose to abandon the village, winter will kill us all. Not only that, a sacrifice or two means fewer mouths to feed, and we all know that is a problem."

"Are you perhaps applying to be the first sacrifice, Bellar? We all know you and your sons eat for two and leave your scraps to your wife and daughter - look how thin they are!" Thork asked the blacksmith with disarming sincerity.

Redness appeared on the blacksmith's face - he could now feel scornful looks from the crowd stinging like needles on his back and anger getting the better of him. Then a twisted smile returned to Bellar's face. "Thork, you know very well that the Fog prefers kids - the younger, the better. I hear your wife is deep in the ninth month. A newborn could get us a couple of months from the Fog."

Immediately, Thork jumped from the stage. Now that they were up-close, the chief towered over blacksmith both in height and in menace. "Do not dare to utter such words again, Bellar. Light mages are rare to find, but blacksmiths are not. If I ever hear you threatening my family again, I will chop your head off and feed it to the ravens."

A drop of sweat traveled down Bellar's face as he fought against fear to keep eye contact for as long as possible - when he could not hold anymore, he sighed theatrically and moved in long strides towards his smithy, away from the gathering. A group of people, the families who still supported Bellar's claim to the position of chief, left the crowd and followed behind him.

Thork turned back to the crowd and reined in his powerful killing intent. "Does someone else have a better alternative?"

Once again, the booming sound of distant thunder dominated the scene.

"Then I guess we will go with my first proposal. The huntsmen will patrol our village searching for signs of a killer, while I will go to the capital to procure a portable Lighthouse. Rall Lightson will stay with my wife and me until his sixteenth birthday. If the Fog comes while I am away, you will secure the food reserves and head for the shelters. That is all for this gathering."

Having given his final word, Thork silently headed towards his house on the hill. The crowd slowly faded, worried but not scared. Farmers were used to the gods deciding their fate.