The time of heroes had long since passed, but many of its tropes and ideas could still be traced to more modern thoughts. This included the old wives tale that you'd be able to smell and feel a major event long before you could see either its impact or view it with your own eyes.
Andy noticed it first. His skin seemingly heated up, followed by the smell of brimstone. His sudden stopping nearly made the other two crash into him, but they were able to tell nearly as quickly as him. Giving a small hiss, he turned around and glanced at both of them.
"Keep heading forward, I'll go check it out. Ange, don't leave Elyon. Something's wrong."
Faster than Elyon could blink, he had started running down the road with incredible speed. Ange looked at the ground pensively for a second before nodding at Elyon to follow. The pair started to move forward as fast as the wind and their legs would take them. The closer they got, the more intense the smell became. It wasn't just brimstone now, there were other smells mixed in, and a faint strand of smoke reached into the sky. Elyon glanced around, a feeling of panic starting to seep into her blood.
She knew these hills, knew this road, knew these skies. By the time that Elyon and Ange had caught up to Andy, he was once again standing still, looking out from where the three of them had set out from only two days earlier.
There wasn't a single building left standing. A few shallow fires remained, burning themselves out next to the singed remains and skeletal structures that had been the little town. Unlike Andy, Elyon didn't stop for a moment as she rushed past him into the road which was half covered in debris. Something under her foot made a sickening crack, but she didn't stop as she waded into the destruction. To anyone who hadn't grown up there, the maze of collapsed buildings and obscured roads would be impossible to navigate, but she knew the area well.
It took only a moment to reach her family's inn. Elyon looked over the entire building, or where the building had been before she collapsed to her knees. The only thing that remained was bits of melted steel, twisted by the heat and the floor which was littered in things so burned that Elyon could only guess at what they had been before. Soot covered everything that wasn't still burning, adding a dull shade to the entire town. This time, Elyon couldn't suppress the tears that had threatened to burst forth earlier in the day. With no desire to stop it, she fell where she was and curled up, tears streaking down into the soot below.
What would her parents think?
It didn't matter, not even their bones remained.
The biting cold, the trinkets she had gotten from her trip, the dances she shared, none of it mattered in that moment as she clutched her knees and wept.
It was only when her tears had run dry that the exhaustion of the trip, the early morning and late nights caught up to her. The ash on the ground below was the only reminder she had of her home, the place she had felt so sick over even as she looked back at it walking away for the first time. Clutching a handful of ash, she pressed it to her chest before letting out one more shudder and slipped into the oblivion of sleep, not caring if she woke up or not. Unseen to her closed eyes was the wind around the entire town shifting and whistling, closing its palm around the remaining fires and snuffing them out as she lay there on the ground. What not even the snow had been able to do for days, had happened in a matter of minutes. For now, however, she continued to slumber, passing into a dreamless sleep.
Elyon woke only three times during the following four days.
The first time was at a small campfire where she rolled over just enough to see the familiar hills of the town, although Elyon didn't quite understand why it looked so flat. Where were the buildings? Two voices could be heard muttering to each other, the strange figures silhouetted against an empty landscape. Deciding this must be some sort of bad dream, she closed her eyes once again.
The second time she was awoken by a bump in the road. Her arms were loosely wrapped around someone's shoulders as she lay limp against them. There was another figure in front of her, but the only noise was the sounds of hoofsteps against a dirt road as the group rode forward. Green fields now surrounded them, the warm sun beating down from above. Her trip hadn't ended, and as such she closed her eyes.
The third time she was standing. She snapped out of her daze just long enough to glance around in confusion. White, pristine walls covered the entire hallway. Two figures walked in front of her, apparently oblivious to her sudden stopping. Raising her hand to stop the sunlight streaming into her eyes from the outside windows, she noticed a flag outside the window. The flag of the royal mage academy of Sederra was a very distinctive pattern of interwoven colors and a hand holding a scroll, one that even Elyon recognized. That was rather strange. She had never heard about what the insides looked like, why did it seem as if she was there? After another pause, the flash of memories came back like a wave. Elyon clutched her mouth, collapsing to the ground before the bile in their stomach surged forward. The memories of a burned town, the ground covered in ash and soot, and the whirl of wind caused her to vomit on the white floor below, before her eyes rolled back and she collapsed onto the ground.
The next time Elyon woke up, she was in a warm bed. The previous week's memories were still there, but she felt strangely numb to them as she sat up and looked around. Unlike the inn bedrooms of the North, the area she now found herself in was much too nice to be the kind one paid to stay a few nights in. Only one other bed was in the large room, about as far away from her own as it could be.