The lamp at the corner of Ashfall and Sixth had been dead for eleven years when Sera Voss noticed it burning.
She stopped mid-stride, her tool belt swaying against her hip, and stared at the thing as if it had personally insulted her. The ward-lamps of Kael’Doran were her responsibility — all three hundred and twelve of them — and number two-seventeen had been decommissioned since before she had earned her rank. The crystal was cracked. The housing was rusted through. She had written it off in her ledger with a neat line of red ink and moved on to the lamps that could still be saved.
And yet here it was, burning. Not the pale blue of proper ward-light, but something warmer. Almost amber. Almost alive.
She crossed the street and crouched beneath it, ignoring the look from a passing merchant who clearly thought she had lost something in the gutter. The housing had been cleaned. Not repaired — the rust was still there — but someone had wiped the ash from the glass and polished what could be polished. The crack in the crystal had been sealed with something dark and resinous that she did not recognize.
“Who did this?” she said, to no one.
The lamp flickered, as if considering the question, and continued to burn.
— story continues —
Also set in Kael’Doran