Kihara stood over the frozen body of Jeuni Huros and reached down to pick up the now-empty burlap sack. Ripping it into a roughly rectangular shape, she draped it over the dead juggler and tucked the edges in under his arms and legs so that it wouldn't blow away. The juggler's boots stuck out irreverently from under the makeshift sheet.

Spare doors and Byhryn halberds and a cupboard of kitchenware and several mountains of books surrounded the two, a haphazard monument to the juggler's wizardry. Knives decorated the ground like needles in the woodlands, and the sky overhead swam with bright blue swallows.

“I was glad to be your hope.”

...

... curiosity consumed the girl and she opened the box, and the evil streamed out and cut down her father. Gone was her innocent childhood. All that remained was the evil, and maybe a bit of hope, but that was evil too.