An excerpt from a very, very rough draft... ^^'

Jillian felt her blood running cold as she heard the tense chatter of the townsfolk.
            “A brutal attack on numerous holdings…” “Ghosts in the daylight...” “Several pledglinks destroyed…” “Such crippling power…”
            Brother…
            She kept her skin hidden and her head covered under a heavy cloak and she hurried through the streets. She could sense her blatantly suspicious appearance and behavior was severely bothering the people around her, but didn’t have the convenience to bother with their comfort. Even her hurried manner of passage through the town caused a slight unrest. She didn’t dare stop, though; for fear her legs would not continue on through her paralyzing fear.
            They all whispered among themselves; beside every alleyway and in front of every obscure building, there was an anxiety apart from any curiosity a heavily cloaked stranger might cause. There was something real, something dangerous, and very nearby.
            Smoke was starting to rise over the cliffs. The stuff reeked of pain and sorrow; broken pledges made by this world’s entity. Jillian consciously kept far away from the source of it. She never dared go near any sites where that terrible sin had taken place. She knew that if she saw the evidence of what Wren was doing, she couldn’t condone it any longer. And she had to, for the sake of the remaining of their ruined, pitiful people.
            And she would never allow herself to judge her brother. She could never, not when he was condemning himself to the irrevocable price he would have to pay when this was all done.
            The telltale call of the Lord Prior’s summon sent her sprinting for the nearest dingy alleyway, curling up silently against the darkness as she waited for the Prior’s entourage to pass. The echoes of hopeful cheers from the people as their beloved steward passed through were haunting wisps in the enveloping darkness where Jillian hid; a place where she had spent her whole life, where her people had spent all of their lives, and their long lines of distant ancestors before them. This world was just too bright, too painfully brilliant.
            ‘We’re only strangers here. By every Law of Order, we shouldn’t exist in this place. This is so wrong…..’ She thought miserably. But there was no place left for them to exist. In reality, they shouldn’t even be alive at all. It would certainly have been better for this bright, foreign new world if their race had all died in their own universe, where they had truly failed.
            So many were going to suffer here, so much life and progress destroyed….for the sake of a few dying refugees. But they had to continue on. Survival was their only option, overriding any morality, justice, mercy, or honor. Nothing else mattered.
            ‘And Wren…he has to die for this….for us….
            …for nothing.’