Master Gothlan rose slowly and shook the weariness from his mind. Straining his old eyes he struggled to grasp his surroundings. There was rubble and dust clouds where moments ago there was the laughter of children playing in the sun. Could any moment better define chaos?

As he gazed to the left his heart froze as a the dust filled air cleared. There knelt Galen holding the still form of the only one he would ever truly love. The old wolf saw Galen's face and shuddered at the memory of it. Was it only a dozen years before that he saw that look?

In the kitchen a old woman lay on the floor, with tears of pain and pain that was still to come in her eyes. The brat pack of the wizard school had played a prank that had caused the poor dear to loose her balance. Master Gothlan was there and his eyes scanned among the students to the one that laughed the loudest. Bronly was his name and he lead the miscreants. But in the corner his eyes also caught sight of a young student of the headmaster. The boy had a look of someone who had just lost everything. He was far too young to have such a look. The old woman had been kind to young Galen, his only kindness in the dreary school he had entered just two years before.

The next morning Bronly was not to be found in his class or anywhere on the school's grounds. The teachers asked one another who dealt with the student and how but none took credit. It would be thirteen months that a letter would reach the school. A letter from Bronly who had jumped into his bed that night and found himself transported to the other side of the world with a note stating that he was never to return. In the letter he begged for rescue but not to come back.

It was Galen, impossible for a boy of eight but he knew it in his bones. How did he do it?

Now at twenty he held his love with that same look on his face. Gothlan could feel the power drawing towards Galen and a single thought froze his mind.

If Molly is dead he will burn this world.....