Instead, we're treated to a tale of a love that cannot be, and the magical revenge of a lover spurned. T here is death in the wind as it carries the screams of villagers who watch their straw huts burn, who see the timber of houses and barns coated with orange heat, their hopes quickly charred black. In a yard the oily fleece on a lamb gives the odor of scorched tallow as the animal is engulfed. A child of five thrusts tiny fistfuls of fine dirt at her home, imitating her mother. A young man has run out of air, slumping at the barn door.
Flames run like a river in the road.
The wind is soft, lifting sparks like fireflies alive to the tall field grasses, to the skeletal trees, then into the forests, sending the king's deer running. The flames are charging closer to town, to the taverns and stables and markets. The young queen sits beautiful within the cold stone walls of her castle, in her cold dressing room at the curved window, watching faint spots glow and pulsate here and there over the kingdom, imagining her people scattering like black ants when they lose their dusty hill. The messengers have no explanation, and the king's men are gathering to talk of the firestorm. The queen does not need a reason.