While Ashlynn enjoyed the remainder of the masquerade ball with Nyrielle and her new thorny protector, a very different ceremony was taking place on the site of what had once been a village belonging to the Heartwood Clan.
Thick woodsmoke filled the air along with the stench of burning flesh. Heaps of logs had been piled into grand funeral pyres that stood as tall as any of the men responsible for constructing them.
It had taken days to retrieve all of the bodies of the fallen after the demons shattered their own dam and unleashed a flood of mud and water on Owain's hunting party. Some men had been buried so deep in the mud that they were only found with the use of hunting dogs.
