The eight men and women stood in the room, staring at each other. The crowd had fled in the madness, and the soldiers had all been swept away with it, or beaten into submission. A few unconscious knights lay on the floor.
The king sank into his throne. "Close the door."
Hafros and Aderyn rushed to the great double doors, heaving them shut. Lily was already checking the soldiers for more serious wounds, making sure they didn't have anything lasting. She came across the priest, kneeling next to the dead body of the mercenary captain.
"I killed him." The priest said "I've never killed anyone before."
Lily didn't know what to do to help him. Then Catrina was there, and she had dropped the bow and arrow, and was hugging the priest tight. He hugged her back, shaking in her grip.
The king stared at all of this, and then at the scholar and beast man in front of him.
"It feels like something is gone." The king said.
The Man in the Woods nodded. He paused, and then took off the hide of the wolf. It thumped to the floor, lifeless.
The scholar seemed to be at a loss, for once. Which was unfortunate, because the king turned to him for answers.
"What is gone?" he asked "What just happened?"
The scholar opened his mouth, then closed it and thought.
"Once there were eight heroes." He explained. "Who fought mighty battles. And they were trapped in another world by one of their enemies: a twisted jester."
The scholar glanced where the court fool had stood, and where he disappeared. The scholar shook his head.
"It seems that those eight were attached to us. To imprison them."
The king looked at his sword. There was no blood on it. It was as clean as could be.
"Then… we aren't the heroes."
"We were. But- they seem to have gone back to their own adventure."
The king looked at the ceiling, and he sighed.
"Now what?"
"That's the question, isn't it?"
No one entirely understood what had happened, in the aftermath. There was rumor of a sorcerer who had disguised himself as the king's fool, and taken over the court. There were rumors that angels had struck down a devil in the throne room.
What could be said was that the court gained a new knight. A man with striped scars, and a bit of a feral look in his eyes. They called him Sir Conri, the wolf. He became one of the kingdom's greatest heroes.
It could be said that the Scholar was promoted to the high ranks or the royal academy, and immediately went to work researching unexplainable forces, and unconscious bonds. He was considered a little nutty by some, but the more mundane research he turned out was of undoubtable quality.
The castle got a new healer in the royal infirmary, a new captain in the navy, and a new royal hunter, who seemed to be picking up falconry very quickly.
As for the girl names Catrina and the priest named Orrin: they headed back to his village on a simple cart. The king had offered to bring them both to court, to make them rich and send special requests to the highest priests to make Orrin a Saint. But they had both declined, and said goodbye to Lily, as well as the others, with bittersweet smiled.
The king sent them with plenty of reward, of course. He wouldn't brook protest on that account. The priest thought he might fix up the church a little, and perhaps give some to the town to improve the well or something.
"Father Orrin?"
He looked over at Catrina, who was staring at her hands.
"Father Orrin, when we get back, would it be okay if I attend a church service?"
He nodded. "Why the change of heart?"
Catrina looked up, at the sky.
"I was an angel Father Orrin. It only happened for a moment, but I felt it inside me. Like a bright light." She looked at him, "I can't burn up in the church if I felt something like that, can I?"
Orrin smiled, and shook his head.
"I think you'll be just fine."