Screams tore through Zellheim's night sky.
In the central square, the once impeccably dressed nobles abandoned all dignity, shoving one another as they fled. Trampled peacock meat mingled with dirt, expensive velvet tablecloths hung from the legs of overturned chairs, and wine spilled across the ground in glaring crimson pools.
Amid the surging tide of people, two figures stood motionless, like reefs.
Prince Wilander raised a hand and leisurely straightened his coat cuff, which the crowd had rumpled. He turned to look at the monster gnawing on a table leg, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
"Veylin, aren't you taking your hostility toward the Church a little too far?"
The prince spoke calmly, yet his words carried the absurd air of someone who saw through everything but chose not to say so.
Veylin stood beside him, his gaze fixed on the increasingly rotund bishop at the center of the stage. At those words, he sighed helplessly.
"Your Highness, I must reiterate that this really was an accident." Veylin casually set his wineglass on the base of a toppled statue beside the road, his tone thoroughly innocent. "I never expected this bishop's desires to be so much more honest than his faith. One little prod, and he exploded."
Wilander nodded slightly, outwardly accepting the explanation. Inwardly, however, he surveyed the horrifying scene before him, like a tableau of hell. An "accident" on this scale? Only if the sun rose in the west.
A shard of a broken silver platter flew past the prince and embedded itself in a wooden post behind him.
"Let's go, Your Highness." Veylin turned away. "The show's over. Stay any longer, and they'll charge us admission."
Wilander cast one last glance at the monster, now surrounded by the senior priests rushing to the scene, and scoffed.
The two walked