The woman shook her head and trembled before this strange woman sent by the Crown. Was she some sort of demon? Somehow, she couldn’t quite picture the Empress as merciful. “She had a whole village slaughtered, and that was when she was a young girl,” she said, her eyes flitting from Ysaryn’s burning glare to the frightening blades she wielded, as if expecting any minute to be decapitated. “H-how could you blame me for being afraid of her?” Whatever defiance she displayed in making these remarks left, however, when the pink-haired warrior told her to lift the sleep from the village and confess to the giant Countess. 

“If I wake them up, everybody wakes up,” she said. “Even the messengers the lords had sent. We had heard about these men. The village will pay for ou—for m-my mistakes. And the villagers will make my husband pay. Will she—will the Empress make sure nothing bad happens?” But another look at Ysaryn and the woman knew she was out of options either way. Swallowing, she nodded, and meekly walked back with her to where the other two had fallen asleep. 

Once she was standing in front of them, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and pressed her hands to her chest. Nothing happened for several minutes, but after a while, both Narda and Daryll began to stir. 
“Ugh,” Narda grunted, pushing herself up from the ground. “Feels like that time we stole barrels of wine from smugglers.”
Daryll cursed in Taakalon as he rubbed his face, then looked up to see Ysaryn and the mayor’s wife. “Ah.” 
“Back to your house,” Narda said. “Tell me everything from the start. The [i]truth[/i],” she said, looking pointedly at the woman, who nodded fervently. Around them, the town, too, began waking up, accompanied by noises of confusion and distress. “I want to know everything before we take you anywhere else.” None of them had reacted to the four of them, but Narda knew even before the woman could divulge her fears about how they would behave that they would be demanding answers and reparations for this. “Oy, Daryll, shake it off,” she grunted, shaking the scholar by the shoulder. 
“I’m up, I’m up,” he insisted, straightening up on shaky legs. 

Back at her home, the mayor seemed to have also just come to. “[i]Holly? What’s happ—oh[/i]!” His face went beet-red at the sight of all three of the strangers back in his home. Holly started sobbing.
“They know. It’s over.”
“Again, from the beginning, or I will throw your husband outside for your fellow villagers to deal with,” Narda growled, still irritated from having succumbed to the spell and from wanting to get back to Kire with the information. 
“More importantly, we want to know if anything else had happened alongside the emergence of your magic,” Daryll put in. “Voices, visions, strange sensations, unexplainable impulses, that sort of thing.”
“Voices?” Holly sniffled. “N-no. No voices.” She shook her head, then turned to her husband. “Did I?”
“No, milord,” the mayor put in. “Just that, I was the first to feel it. And then eventually more and more people succumbed to the sleepiness. Holly wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose, she’s a good woman, but the lords’ thugs—er, sorry, messengers, they frightened us.”

“The more I fretted, the more it happens. It’s—will I really get help?” Holly asked. “Or will I turn out like that Lyta girl?” 
Daryll frowned at that question. “’Turned out like that Lyta girl’? Right now, you’re on the same boat,” he began. “Except you had backed yourselves into a corner, and you let everyone put the blame on that poor girl. Didn’t you?” 
“I will deal with the ‘thugs’ you mentioned,” Narda said, eyes narrowed at the husband and wife. “You leave my lord father to me. As for the other lord, I assume you meant our neighboring province’s liege. Fret not, goodwife, the Crown isn’t singling you out for persecution. Her Majesty has other pressing problems, you know, and if there will be others like you, you will be of great assistance.” 

Holly merely nodded her head meekly, tongue-tied. At her husband’s prompting, she retold what she had said to Ysaryn. Narda was quiet for a few moments after that. This village was lucky, in a way, that it was so far from the center of the Wild Meadows and the next territory, and that it was so small compared to other towns. Else, the disappearances of these messengers would have caused a bigger stir. [i]Still, this is odd. There should be other reports about this town reaching us by now. Why haven’t the neighboring noble families taken bigger action, or at least given us word?[/i] 
“Nard,” Daryll said, tapping her arm to call her attention. “Time to go back to Kire.”