She drops her gaze again for a moment, nodding the tiniest fraction.

He's right. She wishes he weren't, but --

So it goes.

(There are a great many nightmares in her future, she can tell that now.)

"I didn't really see what happened next, but a mob swarmed on the Gallows, and the templars went too, to make sure people were safe, and then -- I don't know if Elthina passed out, or had a fit, or -- what, but she was down suddenly and there was screaming about how a mage did it, and then it seemed like everything snapped at once and it was just -- blood."

There's a detachment in her voice, now, gaze gone distant at the memory.

"Fire, too, later. We tried -- we tried to funnel noncombatants out, and it worked for a while, but panic doesn't allow for too much control of traffic flow. The only mages that seemed to be surviving were those using blood magic, until even that wasn't enough and -- "

She shivers.

"He used their corpses. All of them. We had to burn him down to ashes to make him stop."