909
"Someone went to set a fire? At a time like this? What idiot did that? Isn't that just handing the other side bargaining chips?"
Hvin Rambis saw the flames from the window and frowned in puzzlement. Only after a good while did his brow slowly smooth out. He inwardly grumbled about the fellow who had lost his temper and acted, then began considering how to make use of this incident.
It was only ten at night, and the dinner party was drawing to a close.
For the nobles and the wealthy, the evening's entertainment had barely begun. But the streets were already very quiet. The common people were either snatching every moment of sleep they could after a day of hard labor or still working beneath the streetlamps. Homeless vagrants wandered the streets, seizing the time before the police arrived to catch a little sleep in parks or sheltered corners.
As tongues of flame licked the third-floor walls of the Harvest Church, burning the brand-new wooden window frames black and leaving glaring scorch marks on the recently whitewashed walls, lights gradually came on in the surrounding neighborhood. Quite a few people opened their windows or stepped out onto the streets, gaping at the blazing church. Strangely, they all seemed to be merely watching. No one tried to put out the fire.
Hvin Rambis began to feel that something was wrong. Even in Backlund, surely some of those living near the Harvest Church were believers. They couldn't all just stand by so quietly, could they?
He thought for a while, and his brows gradually knitted together again.
He felt there was something wrong with these people's emotions, but couldn't quite say what-all of them watched with schadenfreude, and even the churches, which could summon rain to extinguish the blaze with