Look at the pretty fire, Lizzie

Cali stepped lightly through the snow and around the worst of the massacre. She’d been around death her entire life and wasn’t queasy in its presence or the aftermath, but she only had the one pair of boots. The others were taking in the scene, both inside the squat building and without. There had most certainly been a large number of sacrifices here and in Necromancer lands that was a bad sign of worse things to come. Some would argue that human sacrifices were always a bad sign. The dark witch did not enjoy taking the lives of others, but there were times when it could not be avoided. Self defense was a reasonable excuse for slaying your enemies, but she’d be lying if she claimed that was the bulk of her experience with slaughter. When you had death whispering in your ear every moment of the day and night you learned to do those things that it asked of you if for no other reason than to quiet the voices.

She squeezed through the doorway and slipped the impractical headdress from her hair. The roof was low, but she was not the tallest among them and they were able to stand, just barely. She moved near the forge, but gave it a passing look. She wasn’t a worker in metal and heat; she dealt in other mediums. “What compels you to join these blades into one? The voices of the dead guide me, but from where are you receiving these directives?”