Refugees of the Gloomwood

The smell of burning pine timber and scorched wool hung heavy over the Willowbrook clearing. Black, oily smoke billowed into the pale afternoon sky, blotting out the treetops. At the center of the clearing stood the old watermill, its two-story timber roof already collapsing into a roaring vortex of orange flames. Inside the stone foundation of the mill, forty terrified Solarian refugees—elderly men with silver beards, gaunt women clutching crying…