Chapter 10 - The Fire of a Soul

Belladonna

Two guards took me underground.

I don't know how long it took us to go down all the flights of stairs that delved deep into the ground beneath the pavilion.

I lost track, at some point.

It wound through narrow corridors lined with damp, humidity-covered walls and descended flights of stairs that seemed to lead deeper and deeper into the earth. The smell of rust and decay lingered in the air, assaulting my nostrils and making me want to cover my nose with my hand. Beside me, the wolf made a sound that resembled a sneeze, clearly sharing my distaste for the pungent odor. As we made our way further down, the sound of our footsteps and the wolf's nails clipping the floor echoed through the corridors, raising the hairs on my arms. The wolf's ears pricked up at the sounds as if he too felt the eeriness of the silence like a blanket over a candle, smothering and stifling.

I wanted to be gone from here with every step I took further down.

At the very last landing of the stairs, an oval room stretched before my eyes, with a door on each side of us. Everything in the room was ivory-white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, all of it. But as my eyes scanned the walls of the room carefully, I realized I recognized the symbols carved into the stone of the walls all around me, from a time before the torment, before the nightmares, and before my entire world was torn apart. I recognized them because I'd seen them carved into the longhouse back at Thorneval, painted across Serket's hands and face, and sewn over banners shaking in the wind.

They were the reminders of another life.

Mementos. Remembrances. Memories.

Serket used to call them runes.

She used to tell me how each of them held power. Seid-weavers such as herself would most often use them to draw power from the Gods, calling into the mortal realm the magic that tied them to our realm, feeding it into the runes with a detailed purpose. Usually, they were always used in patterns, linked to a single God for one single purpose. She'd always reminded me that, despite looking harmless, rune-wielding was extremely dangerous if the wielder was inexperienced or too greedy with the power, for 'what the Gods see fit to give, they can take in tenfold'. She always thought that runes were a resource meant to be used with care, mostly because they dealt in magic powerful enough to drive chaos into the world if it was disturbed in any way. She used to tell me that all things lived in balance and using such magic without the proper care could disrupt the balance by aiming at wyrds not meant to occur, so one needed to always be careful of what he asked when using runes, so the price of the request wouldn't be much too high.

The use of runes was never meaningless.

And the price she paid for using them wasn't either.

Back at Thorneval, she'd drawn them all over the longhouse and the small houses of the people, mostly for protection, stringing together a few in reverence to Njord, seeking guardianship from him for our people, as he was known as the patron of seafarers, coasts, inland waters and wealth. I'd see her sometimes occasionally carve others when a recently married couple meant to get pregnant or when someone was battling a illness.

I'd never forget those symbols.

Or her warnings.

I'd seen her draw runes so many times it'd become a game to me, to memorize all the lines and all the indentations of each of them, to the point I could almost recite them all by name, and I'd fallen asleep about twice as many nights with her soft voice slowly declaiming what each of them did and running the pattern of each of them across my skin to ease me into sleep.

In front of me now, I recognized at least four of them, repeated sequentially all over the walls.

Yggdrasil. Valhalla. Heritage. Protection. The Goddess Hel.

These walls were a runestone.

They'd been carved into the very stone of the walls, consecrating it and bounding it tightly to the passage into Helheim, something that was typically done on grave sites in order to purify it and allow the crossing of the souls buried there into the realm of the dead, where they'd be protected by the Goddess Hel — the ruler of Helheim where all the dead went —, though not all of them were granted peace in Valhalla.

Thinking of Serket made the wound on my heart tear apart, ripping the stitches I'd carefully threaded through it, bleeding all over again like the night the blade of grief — sharper than any steel — sculpted it into my heart.

My breathing came in panting gasps through the pain.

The sound must have attracted the wolf's attention because he tilted his snout at me, eyes glowing orange in the dim torchlight flickering across the room. His ears twitched, before he turned his focus to the walls around us, as if he could sense the runes' powers the same way I saw it.

Or the whispers of the souls they protected.

I closed my eyes, cleaning my sweaty palms on my pants, trying to make my heart rate slow down enough to allow me to breathe again.

What was this doing down there?

And why was I here?

"Walk." A voice commanded before I was unceremoniously pushed forward.

My teeth bared at the manhandling and a low growl filled the brim air of the cell from the wolf at my side, but we both knew better than to protest at this point.

It'd only earn me a slap. Or worse.

I did as commanded, footsteps light on the stone as I followed the guard that brushed through me to the door on our left. The door looked ancient, entirely made of wood. As he swung his palm against it, pushing inward, the hinges groaned under the weight of centuies, revealing a dimly lit corridor lined with cells on either side. My feet met cold, damp stone that I felt through my worn slippers almost immediately. I shivered at the coldness that installed in my bones.

Were these —

I held my breath.

These chambers were consecrated ground and this is what she'd decided to do with them? A cell block? Did she even know what these runes meant? What they stood for? Did she even imagine the sort of defiance to the Gods it was to fowl these walls with the stench of death and pain?

Did she care?

I supposed she didn't.

The air was thick with despair. Faint whispers floated through the air — pleas from shadows barely visible behind rusted bars, though I couldn't see more than three cells occupied. A thick stone wall separated each cubicle, leaving whoever was inside trapped in its own world of nightmares.

I steadied my breath, my heart pounding against my ribs as I followed the guard down the corridor. My eyes adjusted to the dimness, discerning figures curled up or sitting motionless in their small confines. Some watched me with hopeless eyes. Others turned away, resigned to their fate. A gasping sound from the cell at the far end caught my attention. The guard in front of me approached cautiously, grabbing a torch from the sconce on the wall and holding it high to illuminate the figure that inhabited it.

There, under the flicker of uncertain light, lay a girl turned on her side on the small iron cot on the cell, a pool of vomit and blood on the floor before her, whose eyes bore into my soul with an intensity that belied her fragile appearance. Her knuckles held the edge of the mattress with so much strength to keep her body steady that her skin turned paper white and the sheen that covered her face was sickly enough to let me guess she was at death's door. A wave of vomit rose through her, sputtering out of her mouth in a violent spray. Seconds after throwing up whatever she'd had in her stomach, she slumped back onto the cot, clearly exhausted, her blinking pace lazy and drowsy before her eyes brushed closed and didn't reopen. The stench of death and sickness hung in the air around the girl, its tang metallic iron in my mouth.

This was the reason I was here.

It was a scene of haunting beauty and tragic despair, a girl so close to death that she could almost reach out and touch the gatekeeper of the underworld — close enough that I didn't doubt she could almost see Hel before her, reaching bony fingers to carry her soul into the blissful end —, her body strained with a desperate strength to hold on to life as her eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that pierced my soul. The flickering light illuminated the harsh reality of her situation, the sickness and suffering that clung to her frail form.

It broke my heart.

Please, Great Hel, take mercy upon this helpless girl.

I wasn't sure how old she was. Her body appeared small on the cot, but I wasn't sure if she only appeared so because of her frail state. Her face was young, despite the harsh lines that her pain had drawn on it. She had big eyes framed by thick lashes and the irises that'd stared at me had been as gray as the moonlight. Her hair was matted to her forehead, a dark brown, most likely, and ratted around her head, resembling the appearance of her clothes, tattered, bloodied, and stained with vomit.

The wolf sat beside me, his frame as tall and menacing as it'd been in the snow earlier, his presence comforting even though he didn't make himself noticed and the guards ignored him altogether.

"What happened to her exactly?" The guard still trailing behind us asked, his voice low and hoarse.

I looked at him.

I'd seen him around a few times, but I'd never learned his name — nor had I ever cared to. He was new, here, but even though he often embarked on the cruelty the other guards performed and showed no hesitation in following the Keiserinne's orders, I'd seen him on many occasions look dismayed at the brutality that often took place here. Almost like he felt bad for seeing all this cruelty displayed in the eyes of anyone willing to look and never finding himself doing anything to stop it. It didn't make him any better of a man, but it made me wonder if there was a human being with any resemblance to a soul lying underneath the violence he witnessed and enforced.

I couldn't imagine standing witness to all the things I'd seen here with the ability to help — though not to stop it, because I knew no one man or woman was indeed capable of that feat —, and not doing anything, instead.

Did it weigh on him?

I imagined it would.

"She was attacked."

"By fucking what?! A mountain?"

The other one scoffed, the sound low but echoing all the same in the small space. "TWe think it was a beast."

My brows bunched high in my forehead.

"Here?" Came the younger guard's shock, mirroring my own perfectly.

The older guard gave a half-shrug. "It's our best guess. We can't know for sure until she confirms it, though." He turned to me, then, face stern, though there was a sliver of tenderness in his eyes that I did not expect. "Wake her up if you can so we can try to make sense of what happened. We need to find the thing that attacked her and she's our best clue," the guard ordered in a quiet voice as he approached the door of the cell with a jingling set of keys and opened it. "If she's too far gone, then just…" I watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "Take her pain away."

I was robbed of my next breath at the silent request.

The consideration of the word would've gone unnoticed anywhere else in the world, but not within these walls. And specifically not to me. The last time I'd heard any form of kindness had been a long time ago, and the blurry faces of men like the guard standing before me weren't anywhere close to the ones I'd received it from.

So, to say I was surprised was an understatement.

Inside, the light was dim since the walls were all solid rock except for the bars, and aside from the torchlight weakly blazing into the cell, there was only the bed where the girl was sill staring at me from, and a chair placed at a perpendicular angle to it.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he moved, carrying in a folded blanket and placing it upon the girl, hiding most of her body and the blood that covered it underneath — all the damage and pain.

Which I was thankful for, to be honest.

I had enough nightmares of my own.

I certainly did not need hers.

Instead of keeping my attention on him, though, I locked eyes with the younger guard who'd strayed to the wolf's other side, somehow convinced I was better off not acknowledging the small act of kindness this man had paid a dying girl when I'd seen so many acts of the very opposite, dreading the moment I started seeing these men like people instead of monsters.

"And try to hurry up, Belladonna," he asked as he turned his back on the cot and returned to the outside of the cell. "She doesn't look like she's going to last much longer."

I felt the hairs on my arms raise.

The girl's breath was indeed becoming shallower, ragged, and wheezing as if she couldn't breathe properly, and despite not wanting to give the guard any credit for his observation, it was indeed quite noticeable the girl didn't have much time to live. No matter what any of us did, she'd lost a lot of blood and judging by the amount of blood, her wounds were even more brutal than I'd assumed before. No matter what I did, she wouldn't live long. Certainly not enough to be saved or cured.

Old Ones in heaven, save us.

I preached to the Old Ones, but I knew they did not care for me. Or my situation. Or that of any other girl here. Still, the prospect of having to stand by and watch this innocent being blissfully asleep before me be forced to bear the cruelty of her wounds made everything inside of me quake with absolute fright and revolt. I knew my presence was crucial in achieving what the Keiserinne wanted and I knew I could somehow make the suffering and the pain better with it. Of course, that made me feel the tiniest bit better, but it didn't ease the weight of the burden I would have to carry in my guilt-ridden heart. Or the way it cracked at knowing I'd be responsible for making this girl live through a few more minutes of her horrific fate.

I lowered my lashes tight.

Keep your head down.

With a light shove, the first guard directed me to the chair, forcing me to brace myself against the seat with my hands with a wince when it made the welts from the Keiserinne's whip on my back strain, and then watching me as I very slowly rolled to sit down on it while avoiding supporting my back. "Be quick," he ordered in a concise, low voice.

My brows quirked with the question flooding through my brain that I couldn't bring myself to voice out loud.

"I'm staying." The other guard silently answered, his jaw working as he gave a brief glance at his colleague before forcing his face to relax entirely and focus his stare back on me. "You can go, Khonar."

Oh, Lords.

I placed my hands on my thighs, but I could feel them trembling even as I tried to keep deathly still to give an appearance of a sense of calm I surely didn't feel.

Stepping back from the girl now carefully wrapped around a red blanket with a nod, the other guard backed to the door, going through swiftly and closing it shut behind him with a soft click.

My nerve endings lit on fire as pressure bore down on my chest, making it undoubtedly hard to breathe. Something inside of me was telling me to run for my life and never look back, but I knew that wasn't possible. My hands trembled in tandem with my butterfly heart — agile to no end but so very fragile it was a wonder it didn't break apart at the effort. I closed my eyes, breathing in and out through my nose, forcing myself to calm down as I focused my stare on the sleeping girl before me.

Tone it down.

"You can take whatever time you need."

The unexpected words startled me into looking up at him with my eyes wide in surprise, the reaction as close to genuine as I was capable of — and it was only that fact that urged the reaction from me because it was a mistake I didn't make very often. "What?" My voice sounded small and fragile like a piece of glass — which, most days, it felt like I actually was.

"I know what happened today," he said, voice clipped, jaw working before looking away as if his sincerity shocked him. "So, I won't rush you," he continued, but it was clear to me he was choosing his words carefully, almost like he was scared I might get spooked by them. "And I won't lay a hand on you. As long as you do what you're supposed to, I'll leave you to it."

I frowned, forcing my voice to sound as my lips itched to form the words. "Why?"

"Because it's bad enough what you have to do." He ran a hand through his unruly black hair, tousling it enough to make the strands stand spiked in all directions, and under the dim light in the room, it looked more a deep blue than black. "There's no need to make it any worse."

He was right.

Obviously.

But I was honestly surprised he was admitting this because it wasn't normal behavior for guards to think about any of this. In fact, this entire night was turning out to be a complete surprise. They usually never cared about what I had to do and how gruesome it was or not. They cared about cruelty, pain, and depravity. The fact he'd even consider any of this and consciously tell me he wouldn't force me to do anything as long as I fulfilled the purpose I'd been given meant he… wasn't like the others.

How wasn't he like the others?

Why wasn't he like the others?

I didn't understand.

I tilted my head to the side, biting my lower lip.

For the first time since I'd been here, I found myself looking deeper than the surface at this man who, in the single interaction we'd ever had, both confused and intrigued me so much.

To any other woman in the world, he would be an attractive man — or what I assumed would be an attractive man, anyway.

He was tall and chiseled, wide-shouldered like a sportsman but slender like a runner. His profile was striking, with high cheekbones and an angular jaw. Dark brown eyes, nearly black, beautifully slanted with long eyelashes shadowing his cheekbones. No freckles, but enough time in the sun to stop anyone from describing him as pale. He was wearing a black shirt under a black armor chest piece on all-black gear leathers. Silver buckles crossed his chest and a dagger was belted to his hip — the only weapon I could see, even though I was sure he had countless more hidden along his body. His hair, as black as his eyes, was curly around his head, carrying all the way to his chin, unruly and adorably curly, but there was a beauty to the way the curls lifted off the sides of his face, framing the angular cheekbones and set jawline. His lips were plump and arched beautifully into a note of seriousness that twisted my heart into a knot.

A beauty to rival the edge of a blade.

Deadly to touch, and yet too stunning not to even when it was clear it'd cut.

The light in the room cast him in a sort of ethereal glow and, for a few seconds, as the light danced across his bronze skin, I swear I saw a soft shimmer of shadows start to dance on his face.

I blinked —

Just as it'd appeared, the shimmer disappeared.

Just a trick of the light.

I tried to convince myself of that, but at this point, I wasn't sure if it was. In fact, at this point, I wasn't entirely sure what was and what wasn't. Anything was possible in this world.

Anything.

"Can you do this alone?"

I tilted my lashes upward to spy at him, seeing the genuine interest in his expression by the beautiful arch of his eyebrows. "Yes."

When I was young, calling forth a single side of myself on demand was hard. I used to struggle to control both of them and even more using a single one of them. At the time, I hadn't been able to tell where one ended and the other began, so I struggled with the knowledge of how to not accidentally trigger one of them, to the point controlling either was impossible. It used to drive me nearly insane, the way I existed wedged between the two forces waging war inside of me.

As I grew up and time went by, I learned to quietly make my way through awakening both parts of myself on my own without major predicaments.

That didn't mean I knew the full extent of my abilities. Or that I could control perfectly each side of myself. I lived terrified of what I could do and the reasons behind it. For the most part, because I couldn't, for the life of me, understand how I could do the things I did. However, if I was honest, I also couldn't deny that this power existed and I couldn't pretend that I didn't have it, because the Keiserinne kept trying to beat it out of me if need be, just like she had tonight, all to bring out the part of me she knew reacted to the pain. I knew using it when I couldn't fully understand it was dangerous and I wasn't stupid enough to assume having been forced to, in some way, gouge the extent of its effects made me qualified to use it at will, but I had no other choice than to pave a battle with it to gain some form of control over it. Of course, despite that, most days, it still felt like the two forces waged war amongst themselves inside of me, but I'd learned to tune one down so I could use the other one. As long as I remained calm and concentrated, I could summon each side and control them enough to use a single one of them.

Calm and concentrated.

Not always as easy as it sounded.

I let out a rough exhale.

I feel fire in my blood. And shadows on my skin.

Sometimes, it feels like fire is my soul. Just as darkness is my body.

Most days, it feels like one steers my body, while the other grabs ahold of my soul. It's like the two of them are fighting inside me. My body wants to give in to the dark. It wants complete release. Absolution from the confinement of the world it lived in, into one where it was bound by no rules and, more importantly, no boundaries. Where it could do and be whatever it wanted, to the extent it was willing to go. However, my soul won't let that happen. To my soul, it's like the freedom my body seeks means no choices. No willpower and no frontier between what can and can't be. It recognizes it is trapped inside of me and it wants the darkness to remain, as well, making a barbed-wired cage for it with a ring of flames so it never manages to escape. Of course, my mind seems to not have a say in it. Instead, only the two of them have a say in all of it and so, every day, it feels like I'm being pulled by the hand one way and another by the feet.

And thus, I never know which way to go.

And so, the battle wages on.

In an eternally ongoing war.

Most of the time, the sustaining, shocking struggle is painful. It feels like a crackling fire ignited in plain darkness. It hurts every single second it burns, but it never dies out. The embers remain, alight with a power and a resilience capable of defeating all lack of source and essence. It grows dimmer, also, sometimes, letting the shadows momentarily trickle a few inches further, gaining just a bit more ground, covering just a little more pathway, and making the flame almost become a gentle cloud of smoke carried out and gently extinguished by the growing shade of black, but then something… something… something ignites.

And it burns — so much.

Because for that one inch the darkness gains, it becomes crueler, more vicious, more possessive, and greedier. It wants more. It craves it like one might crave air to breathe or food to survive. It doesn't care that it's been living inside me simultaneously with the fire. It wants to take it all — become it all. So, then, when the spark comes alight once more, it doesn't want to give back the inch it stole, grabbing hold of the space it took with clawing hands and gnashing teeth to keep what it so forcefully gained. It doesn't walk away or back down, like a dog protecting its bone, even if it realizes it's doomed to give back what doesn't belong to it.

And that…

That's one of the most painful things I've ever experienced.

And still do, every day.

Because where the fire is graceful and gentle, the darkness is merciless and violent. So, even if the flames hurt deeply like a literal fire burning, the dark is somehow worse because it gnaws away at every piece of me like a parasite slowly eating me from the inside.

I let my lashes graze downwards, my breaths dragging painfully inside my lungs.

The guard cleared his throat. "The others told me you couldn't. That you needed it to be triggered, every time."

That was when I was forced to use it against my will.

"It doesn't." I swallowed, eyeing the palms of my hands, focusing on opening and closing them, slowly curling my fingers into my palms, and extending.

I could feel his unease and the follow-up question he was dying to ask, but he didn't say anything further, so I guessed that meant it was time that I started what I'd been brought here to do.

So, with a resigned sigh, I began.

I shut my eyes tight. Settled in the chair. Squared my shoulders. Lifted my head. Let my arms fall to my sides. Straightened my spine. Righted my legs. Planted my feet.

"Do you want me to leave?" Came his abrupt question, once more completely catching me off guard despite this time not startling me enough to force me to look at him.

I shrugged without opening my eyes. "Doesn't matter."

And it didn't, really.

I'd grown used to being watched. It didn't really change anything anymore. At this point, someone being present or not was all the same for me.

I took a deep breath.

So, it begins.

It started with a small flutter of my heart. A small shot of electricity. It flowed through my blood, a surge of energy like a shot of the sweetest honey mead, igniting my veins and alighting a fire lying dormant within the walls of my caged heart. I didn't need to open my eyes to know every single pathway of my veins was slowly painted amber like someone had injected a bright fluorescence into my blood, the golden glow emerging from my heart until it extended to my entire body. The fire ignited gently, warming my skin and body, seeming more like a fiery embrace around my soul than a ring of flames at its edges. As it slowly reached further and further, it was like every single cell in my body was being awakened from a deep, long sleep, igniting each one with its own gentle flame until a dull burning flared alive inside of me.

Soon enough, the fire came alive inside of me.

And for those few seconds, it felt good.

My eyes followed the path of my veins and even though all I saw was an outline of amber tracking up and down my hands, arms, and legs, I felt much more than that. I felt the fire. Right there. Underneath the skin. In my veins. All over. My hands, my arms, my chest, my face, my backside, down my spine, legs, and, finally, my feet. Seconds after it'd reached all my body, I could feel it extending beyond my skin into my hair, making the strands glow just as fiercely as my veins. Ignited in my blood and body, strumming along to every beat of my heart, strongly pumping through my entire body until the fire was all there was, molded together with flesh and bone.

Then, came the darkness.

Just as it'd happened before when the Keiserinne had whipped me, the darkness sprung to life, called upon by the fire's flames. As if awoken by the sudden light and warmth inside of me, it welted its cloudy awareness into me, making the skin where the veins shone amber darken into a shadowy ashen-gray. It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen, terrifying but so very beautiful at the same time because it made my skin shimmer as if a thousand prisms reflected the light in a rainbow of tiny, flashing colors that swirled as I moved. The shimmer started in my skin and elongated itself upwards into the air a few inches above the surface of my body, creating a sort of halo of swirling, shimmering shadows dancing across my skin.

It was fascinating.

I heard the guard's quick intake of breath.

I kept my eyes closed, but if I'd dared, I would have smiled.

In the split second that both forces inside of me were awakened and not at war felt incredibly amazing. I don't think there was any way to properly explain how it felt. The fire was warm and powerful, but lazy in its caress, and deeply pondered about each stroke it made, burning trails of fire all over until all of me was burning within with the same strength, courage, tenacity, and beauty it possessed. Whereas the darkness, on the other hand, felt oddly different, cold but all the same potent, sinful in every inch it took of my skin but delightful all the same, like a forbidden fruit you could taste, but never fully eat, hypnotic to its last inch, to the point it made me crave its shimmering tendrils moving through me.

But then, the war came.

As the shimmer moved and danced on my skin — extending further and further from my body, the shadows reaching beyond my skin with grabby fingers and delightful false promises of pleasure and peace, urging me to devour all around me like a beast famished for its next meal —, the fire sprung to life, infuriated and alight with a strength and might that was unrivaled by anything in existence. My blood boiled, churning with a violence and ferocity that made me grind my teeth, my veins glowing even more vehemently almost a fiery orange. The shadows danced even more wildly in response, daring the fire to circle its scorching fingers around it to stamp its growth, but finding no small space through which to escape its cage, the fire forcing the shimmer to diminish until it extended no more than two inches above my skin, covering me entirely.

I felt the usual burning start in my chest and extend all over until it felt like my very own soul was burning and forced myself to swallow mechanically as if that would ease in any way the sour taste forming at the back of my mouth from the pain eating me raw from within.

Slowly, I opened my eyes.

I didn't need to look in a mirror to know what I would see reflected there, because I knew I would see exactly what I'd expect. Black eyes would stare back at me from my reflection, cold and lifeless like a hole of an empty well, with skin that shimmered black, veins that glowed a deep, blazing amber, and a cascade of ashen-gold hair.

The shimmer and the glow. The shadows and the fire. The body and the soul.

Most people wouldn't say those things were two separate entities.

In my case, they were.

Control your emotions, a voice whispered in my head, which sounded a lot like Serket's voice, her soft, maternal, low rasp as recognizable as my own. Any woman who controls her emotions shall control her beasts.

"It's beautiful…" I think I heard the guard whisper.

I had another word for it and it was, certainly, not 'beautiful'.

I sucked in a breath before carefully leaning forward, my hands hovering over the girl's hand at her side as I found myself hesitating for maybe two whole seconds before laying my hands on her skin.

Maybe it was the anticipation of what would happen once I touched her. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was something else entirely. All I knew was there was a very large part of me that dreaded doing what I knew I had to do, both for me and for the girl, because I was scared of what I'd see when she opened her eyes, but also what she'd tell me and how that would certainly rattle the walls of my world completely. However, there was another part that wondered if I'd be able to do what I was being forced to deliver and I was terrified of the prospect of maybe hurting her accidentally in the process.

In the split second that I held my hands still hovering over me, I stared at her face, asleep and in peace.

She was so beautiful.

A face perfectly sculpted with arched, rich, plump lips, tilted eyes, and flawless, creamy skin. In her sleep, it was easy to forget how she'd looked more terrified and in pain than I thought humanely possible. It was easy to forget the horrific wounds all over her body from claws that'd dragged through her skin as if to rip it clean off her bones.

There was nothing about her that was ugly. Nothing about her that was evil. Nothing about her that made her deserving of the end she'd been handed.

I'd seen her around many times and even though I'd never envied her beauty, I'd never failed to see how her simplicity made her beautiful. No make-up, no ornaments, no clothes were needed to show her beauty, so pure and broad to the naked eye. On top of that, she'd been quiet and kind. I'd never heard her speak ill to anyone — not even me. And, come to think of it, even if she had, it wasn't her beauty or how she treated me that made her deserving of this nightmare she was living through.

Or dying through, to be more precise.

Closing my eyes and furrowing my brows, I willed the shimmer to lift from the skin of my hands with all my might. I felt a heat form in my entrails at the effort, like it was battling very strongly and just as fiercely against my command, but I didn't ease up the pressure. Instead, I made the heat invigorate my willpower, forcing the shadows to comply with my wishes even while under protest.

Not without its struggle, in about five seconds, the shimmer slowly retreated over the skin of my fingers and hands up to my wrists and, of course, in response, my veins became more pronounced, the amber brightening until it resembled the color of a midday ray of sunshine.

A silent gasp of relief left me.

A drop of sweat fell down the side of my face, but I made no move to wipe it, focusing my entire attention on keeping the shimmer in check and the shadows at bay.

Then, very carefully and very slowly, I let my skin brush against the girl's hand.

At first, nothing happened. She remained breathing slowly through her nose, her puffing breaths calm and patterned.

It was as if I wasn't even touching her, at first.

But as I remained in contact with her, I could feel the fire in my blood moving like a small serpent through me, wagging its tail as it slowly made its way through the throngs of obstacles that appeared before it. I didn't try to stop it or force it through any path. I let it take its course. Find its way. Track its path.

It knew where it needed to go and it didn't need my guidance to reach it.

Even with my eyes closed, I knew the second the fire reached her skin. I felt it, the same way the fire did and even though it was very hard to explain, it was an innate feeling that I couldn't explain. It was like we were merged, feeling the same and living through one another. Whatever else the fire might be, it was a part of me and much like my blood — the part of me through which it manifested itself —, it lived in me, so the second it touched the girl's skin, I knew it just as readily as it did because it felt different. Foreign. Unknown. Like it was so used to the warmth, texture, scent, and feel of my body, it instantly repelled another's, so when it touched upon a stranger's skin, it felt like it was moving through an intruder's body. Someone who wasn't his host and hadn't been born to merge with it.

I guess what I'd said before stood more firmly than ever, now.

For most people, body and soul are intimately bonded things that, despite different, couldn't be told apart from one another.

However, in my case, they were very separate things, but more than that, they were intelligent entities — both deeply complex and developed, to the point the fire now paving its way into the girl's blood truly did feel like my soul, reaching beyond myself into hers.

I could feel the fire's hesitation, but with little to no coaxing on my part, which translated into a narrowing of the eyes, it slowly webbed itself through the skin, tracking a path of amber through her skin until it reached the nearest vein in her hand.

Her chest filled with a deep breath the second the fire entered her bloodstream.

I wanted to scream and yelp and applaud and cheer, but I knew I couldn't. If I let my concentration fail me, I'd sooner rather than later be staring at her dead body before me and I couldn't allow that to happen. I needed to remain focused and finish my task, to wake her up and talk to her.

She needed to be alive in order to survive.

Like with my own blood, the fire extended quickly through the girl's body, and even though the color was more faded than my own, it made her veins glow an ashen, pale golden under her porcelain skin, standing out against the blood in her face and hair. With a small pressure of my hand on hers, I felt the fire invade her heart, which beat lazily slow in her chest due to both the blood loss.

Once it reached her circulation, it became easier to gain access to her entire body and to seek out the damage I knew, even beforehand, she probably wouldn't resist.

I could immediately make out that there was nothing wrong with her heart, which made me slightly more welcoming of my odds. It'd been preserved from the wounds she'd endured. I couldn't say the same for anything else. There was bruising in every bone, muscle, and organ in her body like she'd been thrown against a rock with enough strength to attempt to bend the rock to her shape. Her liver was ruptured and there was a massive bleeding wound in her stomach, which is why she'd woken up earlier to vomit all the blood gathered on her digestive tract. Most of the bones on her leg were shattered as if whatever she'd been thrown into had cracked all her bones on impact. There was also a tear in her lower intestine that was bleeding profusely as well and one of her lungs wasn't inflating properly, air having seeped into the camouflage pleura of the organ due to the trauma.

She wasn't going to survive.

She was never going to survive, was she? I silently wondered in the darkest coffins of my mind. Whatever caused these wounds didn't inflict them to wound. It meant to kill.

I dragged in a long breath, blowing it out through my lips.

With gained sensibility, I let the fire die out a bit, becoming gentle glowing embers upon the pyre that was her body and I let the nearly-dead flames cradle her soul, lodged deep in her body, and gently — so very gently —, I poked at it. I couldn't heal her body, even though I knew what was wrong with it, but my soul could touch hers. It could connect with her soul and call to it with sweet words and beautiful melodies, so she'd wake up from her slumber and feel what I meant her to feel. So she'd become free of her agony and know bliss before the end.

It was the best I could do for her.

It was very much clear to me the moment the fire encountered her soul. I couldn't see it or picture it, but I felt it, through the soft pulsing of the fire as it gathered around a spot in her chest where a little blossoming bud of the sweetest, gentlest, warmest ashes still simmered, singed but gone cold from her body's wounds and her counted moments of life to spare. At the fire's embrace and fueled by nothing outside of it, the cinders were gently rekindled and soon enough they became glowing embers once more until, all of a sudden, a flame was born.

The girl's eyes popped open as a gasping breath was heard all over the room and her body arched off the lousy bed she was lying in before settling back down with a soft thud.

My eyes opened to stare down at the girl and I let my hands circle hers, so the connection wouldn't be lost. Her eyes were open, now, bright gray against the light of the torchlight and the glow of my veins. The veins under her chest were also strikingly more amber than the rest of the bloodstream and even though I didn't want to, I felt a tiny spark of pride at the sight.

I softened my expression, relaxing the muscles of my face from the tension of the procedure I'd performed, and moistened my lips, preparing myself for the whirlwind ahead.

Her distraught eyes were wide and scared as she stared back at me. "Gods." Her voice sounded fragile and it broke on the word several times as she spoke. She blinked, moistening her lips as her eyes flipped around the room helplessly. "Please. What —," she stuttered. "Please. What happened?"

"She's awake," the guard remarked.

I ignored him. "Listen to me," I gently murmured, squeezing her hand in mine, feeling my heart tighten at the sight of her widened eyes and that distraught fright in their pupils. "It's alright. You're okay. Everything is okay," I whispered sweetly, straying from the truth and the harsh reality because I knew it wouldn't help the disorientation or the fear she was feeling. "Stay calm. Take deep breaths," I instructed in the calmest voice I could muster.

The girl grimaced. "I —" She swallowed harshly, the sound vibrantly audible in the silent room and the gurgling noise she made as she pulled air into her lungs made a chill run down my spine. "It hurts." Her eyes shut as a whimper left her and she squirmed in the bed with the pain that assaulted her. "Please. It hurts…" She cried, her brows furrowing as she said the words as if she couldn't understand why she was in pain, while at the same time, a tear escaped the corner of her eye. "It hurts…"

Oh, the poor thing.

I could only imagine how bad she must be hurting if, even with the fire already bonded to her, she could still feel any pain.

I closed my eyes.

There was no science behind what I could do. No explanation. The world couldn't explain it and neither could I. Science couldn't and neither could faith. I'd never heard of anyone else being capable of the same and I'd never met anyone who regarded it with any less than wonder and fear. I had no way of justifying what I could do and how I did it.

Honestly, I didn't even know what I could do, exactly.

The only thing I did know was that once the fire was locked into someone else's soul — once it had control of that person's body —, I was capable of providing any grade of peace and bliss to said person I wanted. Mostly, the fire made other people feel naturally good like they were tapping into a form of bliss they'd never felt before as it couldn't be reached without the fire. Like it cleansed all the evil within. To be frank, I believe most of that happened instantaneously once I reached out, but sometimes people needed a little bit of further encouragement to feel the bliss the fire kindly offered.

I tightened my grip on the fire smoothly, feeling it harden into a cord inside of me, binding me intrinsically to the girl. Like a rope, the fire became stronger, the hold it had on her soul sharpening and becoming more pronounced, cutting off all perception of the pain corroding her body physically.

And there was so much of it.

Even before absorbing it, I felt it. Her pain was as acute as a sharp blade slicing into her, coming from everywhere at once. She whimpered and I did the same just as sensing it inside of her. However, I knew the only way to make her cooperative in any way was to make the pain go away and the only way I could do that was by absorbing it myself.

Gods, give me strength.

With a tug, I forced the pain through the cord of fire and clenched my jaw when the onslaught reached me, my eyes popping open immediately as I gasped. I jerked my head back, hissing, and my head spun even with my eyes closed for a few view-tilting moments before righting itself back up.

Holy Ones in Heaven.

My immediate reaction was to try to pull back, but I knew I couldn't do that, otherwise, I'd lose contact and she'd begin to feel all her pain and freak out again. A deeper part of me knew I needed her to remain calm and another irked to protect myself, which created a battle that was unsettlingly known to me, at this point.

I'd felt it many times before.

Still, I kept absorbing her pain like a sponge, letting it rush through me, and, eventually, I felt the shadows swirling along my skin as the attack of pain sprung them into acting, rushing to my defense and quickly evaporating the pain like smoke inside my own soul, even though there was no relief from the action since more pain flowed through the fire.

In response to the whole process — which was frankly quite painful in a weird, unexplainable way —, my hands squeezed around the girl's more firmly than ever, my nails sinking into the palms of her hands.

She barely seemed to feel it, though, her eyes becoming glazed over as if she wasn't seeing anything in front of her. The deep furrow of her brows lightened as a sign of her evaporating pain and she blinked as if a weight had lifted off her. Her breath, despite still gurgling, came easier, no longer stifled by the measure of her pain and her chest moved effortlessly up and down.

Focusing, I forced myself to settle down, granting my body the space and time to get comfortable around the pain flowing through the fire and when I reopened my eyes, the grimace on her face had vanished. "Is it better, now?"

She nodded wordlessly, blinking as her eyes started to gain focus. "Yes. No pain. Now." Her words still sounded choppy, but she tilted her head on the bed to the side to look at me, the gray softened by the haze of peace. "Thank you," she whispered to me, tears welling in her eyes.

"You're welcome."

Her lashes lowered closed, fanning the top of her cheeks and her voice sounded sad but conformed when she spoke, so much they came out of her mouth almost as a sigh. "I'm dying, aren't I?"

I felt a twinge of sadness crushing my heart inside my ribcage and I couldn't force myself to raise my voice above a mere whisper as I struggled to answer her. "I'm sorry."

She stared at me. "There's nothing —," a rasp for breath interrupted her. "Nothing you can do."

I heard a grumbling whimper behind me and the sound of paws hitting the floor suddenly made my heart thrum harder as suddenly the wolf's snout came into view over my forearm. His topaz eyes lifted to me as he gave the slightest touch of his nose to my wrist comfortingly.

I struggled to breathe in, moving my gaze to the girl. "I can make the pain better."

"Thank you."

I felt tears gather at the corners of my eyes.

No, I'm the last person you need to thank.

A sad smile formed on her rich lips, now paler than usual but still just as beautiful. "You're —," a cough interrupted her. "It's more than enough." There was a light squeeze on my hands, kind and gentle, but more than a thank you, it was a reassurance that no hard feelings would fit in this moment, not even ones related to the harsh reality of what I could do and how that wouldn't save her, but instead could only bring her comfort. "It's enough."

I held my surprise at the fact that she sounded genuinely thankful.

No part of me suspected she was lying, but the second I felt her soul, bright and warm, so genuinely beautiful in its simplicity, I knew for a fact she wasn't lying, at all.

A ball formed in my throat.

Instead of answering, though, I let my gaze fall downward so I wouldn't have to look at her and watch her thank me when the only thing I was doing was offering her a reprieve from what truly awaited her as her own fate.

"Do you remember what happened?"

She trembled under my touch. "Yes."

"I need you to tell me."

Her eyes flew open and I felt her heart stutter as her breathing became more ragged and she started to pull air more quickly into her lungs. "Why?"

I gave a quick side glance to the guard still in the room, who was watching us with his utmost interest. At my silent message, he nodded to my unspoken request to not interfere while I talked with the girl no matter what I said. He retreated a step, giving us more room, and crossed his arms over his chest as he silently watched.

I sighed, returning my attention to her, my jaw locking tight with the anger that rode me as I thought of what'd been done to her. "Something hurt you."

She hesitated, giving me a narrowed stare. "That's not a question."

It wasn't my first time doing this.

I gave her a sad smile. "What happened?"

Taking in a deep breath and demonstrating quite more bravery than I had ever expected her to have at this point in her life, the girl opened her eyes, and when they poised on mine, they were a peaceful gray, reminding me of the color of the sky right after a storm. "It was a beast," she announced suddenly, answering the question that no one had asked her yet.

I felt the guard skitter forward.

At my side, the wolf rose to his full height, his body tensing.

"Can you describe it?" The guard asked over my shoulder.

Her gaze drifted away for a moment, lost in the pain of recollection. "It was massive. It had two sets of wings and a tail, shaped like a half-moon. It didn't have a face, per se, it looked more like a dragon flower circled with teeth and reptilian eyes. The eyes… they gleamed red, like the heart of a fire." She shuddered visibly, her previous calm dissolving as the memory took hold. "It moved so fast, a blur, it landed on the forest outside while I was gathering herbs and shoved me into the bark of a tree, tearing it down. The guards rushed in, but it darted its tail and nicked me in the side."

The wolf growled softly at her description, ears flat against his head as if he too could sense the creature from her words alone.

The guard furrowed his brow in concern as I tilted my eyes at him. "Did it speak or make any sounds?"

She shook her head slowly, her voice a whisper as if afraid it could hear her even now. "No." She paused, swallowing hard. "It only screeched."

The room fell silent, each of us processing the weight of her words.

The wolf's growl deepened, and I felt a chill sweep through me. This wasn't just any creature. It was a beast. I had no idea what kind, but judging by the guard's widened eyes, he did and it didn't bode well for us.

"When did this happen?"

Her lashes fluttered. "Mid-afternoon."

"Did it fly off?"

She let her head doddle to the side. "The guards tried to fight it, but it killed them all and escaped."

"I need to report this immediately," the guard decided after a pause that seemed to stretch too long. He stepped back and glanced at me before moving toward the door. "Stay with her," he instructed firmly as he left.

I turned my attention back to the girl whose breaths had become shallow again, the terror not quite fading from her eyes. Instinctively, I reached for her hand again, squeezing it gently to ground her back to the present.

The wolf settled down beside the bed as the guard's exit was remarked by the sound of the cell door closing, his large body serving as both a guardian and a comfort. His ears flicked occasionally, alert to any unusual sounds that might signal danger, but his presence was reassuring.

As I held her hand, the girl's tension gradually eased, and her breathing steadied once again.

Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and when they opened, there was a faint glimmer of determination amidst the fear. "It can come back," she said softly, her voice sleepier now.

I nodded solemnly, feeling the weight of her concern. "They'll deal with it," I assured her.

Her lips curved into a weary smile. "Hum." She whispered, squeezing my hand weakly. "Can I sleep?"

My heart ached.

"Yes," I said gently, voice rough from the lie that was tumbling from my lips. "I'll be here when you wake up. You can sleep."

The wolf's low whine broke the stillness as he nudged my arm with his snout gently as if sensing the lie as well and wanting to let me know so.

"I'm… tired…" She murmured after a while, her eyes heavy with exhaustion although marked by an odd touch of peacefulness.

Tears welled in my eyes again. "Rest well…" I breathed in a whisper for only the darkness to hear. "May your soul find peace."

It took twenty minutes.

I knew because I counted. I counted them like I used to count the cracks in the stones of my own quarters. I counted them like I used to count the freckles on Serket's cheeks whenever she fell asleep before me when we traveled up north to the Celestial Lights and I waited up with her snoring breaths to see them. I counted them like I used to count the hours before sunrise when I was just a sick child wondering if I'd see the birth of another day. I counted them like I used to count my heartbeats after getting shortness of breath whenever I over-exerted myself.

I counted because counting gave me order.

Sense.

Purpose.

And direction.

I counted because it made me less aware of the fire in her soul slowly blinking out of existence until it evaporated altogether. It made me less sensible to the fact that the pain I was still flushing into me through the bond was growing number by the second, dulled by the tendrils of death pulling her away into the darkness. It made me fail to notice the sound of her breaths growing shallower, slower, as if she was measuring her efforts to only take the absolutely needed inhales. It made me shatter less at the burden of forever knowing what it feels like to hold her soul in my hands while her life slipped from her.

I counted because if I allowed myself to feel everything, I would die along with her.

Maybe not in body, but in soul.

The wolf nudged me again, his eyes reflecting an intelligence and understanding beyond that of a normal beast. He seemed to sense the shift in the air, the inevitable approach of something dreadful. His presence remained steadfast beside us both, a silent sentinel in the room thick with the scent of impending loss. His occasional shuffles and soft whines seemed to echo my own internal turmoil, his animal instincts keenly attuned to the shifts in the atmosphere, to the slow ebb of life from the girl whose hand I still held.

Death's kiss.

And in that counting, in that desperate attempt to organize chaos and silence the roar of grief, I began to think of the others. The ones who had come before her, whose stories had ended on my watch, under my sanctuary. Each face, each whispered goodbye, each tear shed in secrecy — they paraded through my mind unbidden, an army of sorrow marching through the battered gates of my heart.

Oh, Odin, how much it hurts.

As her breaths became fewer and further between, I found myself speaking to her in hushed tones. Not with words meant to comfort her — because, truly, there was no comfort I could possibly offer her in this moment that would change anything —, but with stories. Stories of the sky after a storm similar to the peaceful gray of her eyes, tales of forests lush and blooming with life where beasts such as the one she described couldn't dwell. I spoke of places imagined and real, worlds where pain was but a shadow quickly dispelled by the light.

Perhaps it was for me more than for her — a way to keep the darkness at bay, to fill the growing void with something other than the stark, cold reality of her fading life.

Her eyelids fluttered slightly, responding to the rhythm of my voice rather than the content, reminding me that even in these final moments, there was a connection — an ethereal, strong thread still binding us together. Her grip on my hand tightened momentarily, a silent acknowledgment of my presence, and perhaps, of her gratitude for not having to face the end alone.

Then, it loosened.

The wolf remained by our side, his deep, sorrowful eyes seeming to mourn her impending departure as keenly as I did. Every so often, he would lay his head against the bed, his hot breath a comforting warmth in the chilling silence that threatened to consume us.

I continued talking, slower now as I felt each word weigh heavily in the thickening silence between her breaths. My throat tightened with sorrow as each pause grew longer, each inhale shallower. Yet amidst this heartache, I keep the encroaching darkness at bay, using it to wrap ourselves in a tapestry of words and memories that could shield us, however flimsily, from the raw edge of reality.

Stories had power, after all.

The power to transport, to heal, to momentarily lift us out of our physical confines and into something greater, something infinitely gentle.

The wolf's head rested gently against the bed, his eyes half-closed as if he too listened, or perhaps mourned in his own solemn way. His warmth was a steady pulse against the chill that seemed to seep from her fingertips into the core of me.

As the silence stretched between her breaths grew longer, each heartbeat felt like a drumbeat marking the passage of an era.

One where she existed and another where she would exist only in my memory.

My throat tightened around each word, each syllable heavier than the last.

Finally, as her breathing stilled altogether and the soft rise and fall of her chest ceased, I continued to speak to fill the void where her spirit had dwelled just moments before. My voice cracked around edges worn thin by grief, but still, I wove tales — of starlit fields where children ran free, unburdened by shadows, of oceans serene beneath moonlight where nothing was hidden and everything was possible.

Until I was engulfed by grief.

The story had ended, and the voice that carried them trembled into silence, dissolving into the soft sounds of the night outside — leaves rustling against each other, branches shaking with creaking noises, all underlined by the mournful howl of the wind.

The wolf raised his head then, his ears twitching as if he heard something in the distance, a call, a whisper of the wilds that no human ears could detect. His gaze turned towards the door, hearing something I couldn't, or perhaps just acknowledging her spirit's passage into whatever lay beyond this mortal coil. His body tensed for a brief moment before he relaxed again, laying his head back beside her now still hand.

I knew then that it was over.

Her heart had stopped.

That realization came with the strangest sense of peace as I felt my fire snap back into myself, the soft tether that had held her to me cut just as the one that'd once cradled her to this world was now severed, and she drifted beyond where my words could reach. The loss of the touch of her soul made me feel both a striking relief and an immeasurable nostalgia because her presence had filled a void that I didn't know how to deal with now that she was gone.

She's dead.

In the sudden silence that fell like a shroud, tears streaked down my cheeks unbidden, each one a silent testament to the devastation within my heart.

There I sat, defeated by an ending I could not rewrite, holding onto the last vestige of warmth from her hand as if it could anchor her soul back to me.

Which it wouldn't.

She was gone.

Instead, her soul was now in the guardianship of the sacred ground she'd died upon, that'd deliver her soul to Hel to be cared for in its afterlife.

Suddenly, the use of this place didn't look so outrageous anymore.

Moments after, the door to the cell block swung open with urgency and footsteps approached outside the door, sharp and quick against the stone floor.

When they stopped at the cell door, I didn't look up or even move my body to say the words I knew whoever had come in would ask. "She's gone."

I stood slowly, every movement languid and heavy with fatigue. My hands lingered on her still ones for a moment more — cold, yet somehow still full of the life she had lived so fiercely despite its brevity.

And then…

I. Let. Go.

"I'll take it from here," the same guard from before murmured, his voice a whisper against the stone walls that had absorbed too many last breaths. He stepped inside, his presence filling the small cell.

I moved aside, allowing him to come closer to where she lay.

The wolf watched him intently, its eyes narrowing slightly but without aggression.

As I watched him pick her up gently, it suddenly dawned on me something I'd never realized before.

We are but weak flesh and bones.

When we die, the world keeps going.

It was a sobering realization, one that made me feel small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

The guard moved inside to pick up the girl from the bed she'd died in and swiftly turned to leave with her body, but something prompted me to follow him.

A sense of loyalty I didn't even know I had.

We walked through the darkened halls of the prison, past the other cells holding living prisoners who watched us with a mixture of fear and curiosity, up the stairs through the bowls of the pavilion, and outside into the courtyard where I saw that the guards had already started to gather wood to light the fire where this girl would turn into ashes.

As we emerged into open ground, I saw that dawn had arrived outside.

The sky, high in the horizon above me, was a canvas of pastel colors, with streaks of warm pinks, soft oranges, and fiery reds, painted with gentle brushstrokes by the rising sun. Wispy clouds caught the light and seemed to glow from within as they drifted lazily across the sky. Shadows were beginning to lengthen as the light crept in higher in the sky, highlighting the details of the trees and the fortress behind us. In the courtyard, the fresh snow slowly melted away as the sun began to kiss it, creating a spectacle of sparkling prisms that danced with the breeze while the shadows lingered in the forgotten corners.

A delicate watercolor bleeding and blending into one another.

A not-so-gentle reminder that a new day had begun.

The guards, their faces hardened by time of service and indifference, began to prepare the pyre, stacking logs and kindling into an orderly tower right at the center of the courtyard, where the stone was charred from all the other times they'd done this. The morning breeze threatened to topple it, but they somehow managed to keep it in place. One guard, gray with the age and wisdom of countless sunrises like this one, directed them with a barked order or two. He cast a glance towards us as we approached, his eyes flickering to the limp girl cradled in the younger guard's arms. A shadow crossed over his expression but it was gone so quickly that I was left to wonder what it'd been. If compassion, sympathy, or simple resignation. He turned away without saying a word, returning his attention to the pyre.

The guard in front of me moved towards the pyre without hesitation, his face a mask of stoic calmness. He gently laid the girl atop the wooden structure, arranging her arms across her chest in a position of serene rest that belied the cruel way life had been stolen from her.

Nauseous, I stopped walking, freezing on the worn stone of the courtyard still yards from the pyre, incapable of moving any further.

I watched him from a distance, my heart heavy but strangely hollow.

No tears came.

They hadn't for a long time.

A flicker of movement at the corner of my eye drew my attention away. The wolf had followed us out into the courtyard, his nimble body brushing past guards with uncanny grace. His golden eyes were fixed onto the girl lying on the pyre, devoid of aggression now but filled with what I could only interpret as sadness.

Realizing I was watching him, he turned to meet my gaze. For a moment, we stood still amid all that movement, locking eyes across the courtyard bathed in dawn's light, both of us mourning a life we'd touched for only a few seconds before it ended.

The guard settled the girl's body on the ground near the pyre, her face bobbing before staying permanently turned to face me.

She's dead.

She was dead.

I should have been shocked. Or horrified. Or disturbed.

I wasn't.

I just…

I —

I'd never known her name.

There wasn't shock. Or horror. Or sadness. Or worry. I didn't feel any of those things, even though I knew I should, because those were appropriate reactions to what I'd just witnessed. However, the only thing I felt was this oddly shallow nostalgia. Like a gloomy cloud had come and stopped above my head, darkening my very soul.

Nothing else.

And I'd never known her name.

I don't believe I've ever had the chance to. If I had, I would have asked. I would have wanted to know if she'd been willing to tell me. And I would have remembered, for sure. I would have liked to be able to put a name to the person who'd died before me. I would have liked to say her name in my thoughts whenever the memories of her death plagued my dreams and turned my thoughts into nightmares. I would have liked to be able to remember her face and her eyes and put a name to them. It would be nice to be able to remember the sound of someone's voice and grant them the beauty of having more than a tone to them, but a name as well. Of course, names were just a string of letters put together to form something that sounded different and unique to each person, but it would have been good to be able to dignify her with more than memories of her face, but instead mourn her by name as well. To honor her memory with more than unspoken words and silent memories I'd never be able to share with anyone.

A name, however, I could share. I could speak. I could scream. I could cry over it.

It would have been nice to mourn a named person.

Not a nameless stranger.

I'd lost count of how many faces I've mourned over the last few winters. Probably close to hundreds. I'd never known their names and that had always stricken me as vilely unfair, because every single time I watched yet another one slip away and stare with dead eyes to the sky above us under which we'd all die one day, it always struck me that if it was the other way around, I'd like the others to know my name. To remember me by more than the small glimpses we catch of each other and the whispered few words we say to each other when allowed by the guards.

But in truth, that's always what happens.

I stand watching as they die and I never have anything better to say than my farewell in unison with the others. Adding a name to that statement would probably ease the heaviness pressing on my chest and make my words sound truer, more honest, and, certainly, more heartfelt.

But it never happened.

Of all the deaths I'd witnessed in my life, hers would be the one that would carry the most weight because of how unfair it'd been. Because of how accepting she'd been of her ending. She'd been so young. So beautiful. She'd died like a burning fire slowly dying out, as if all oxygen had been pulled out from the wide, cloudy sky above us. She'd left without any comfort aside from the one my fire could provide her, which wasn't a worthy ending, but as least, it was dignified somehow. As much of one as she could have as a thrall, at least, because the truth is there was no kindness or warmth any of us could offer her. No peace. No solace. At least, none that wasn't lies. The truth is none of us could offer her anything, even if we wanted to and could. We were all strangers. Unnamed strangers with no bonds tightening us. Nothing more than blind animals going about their normal chores to survive yet another day before being slaughtered.

That was the reality.

Unfortunately.

She used to be good-looking, too. More so than most of us. Probably of higher upbringing than most. Only the higher-born had fair-colored eyes. Not that it mattered much when it came to the time of death.

We were all treated the same here.

High born or not, we were all animals and that's exactly how we were treated here.

Her dark-brown hair glowed under the sparkling sky with the sun's glow making it look more golden than brown. Its longer locks waved in the breeze, the curled strands moving like bamboo canes under the faint wind, majestic under the sunrise, and yet it glowed like embers with the burning fire beside her. Her face was angled, with prominent cheekbones and full lips that were slightly parted with the last breath she'd taken. Her eyes were closed, and the dark, silvery lashes created patterns of shadows across her features.

I looked away, my jaw clenching.

The memory of her hands in mine was still too real, like a phantom standing before me, holding hands with me the same way we had.

I stared at the dead woman by the pyre.

The guard that'd carried her out of the cell block said something to the other guards' before stepping back and looking over his shoulder at me. "She can stay."

"Is that on Keiserinne's orders?" One of the others prodded.

The guard shrugged, not taking his eyes off me as he answered. "It doesn't matter." He turned back to the guard that'd spoken, speaking in a low voice that, in the silence of the courtyard, still carried through to me. "I'll take her back to her cell once we're done."

I twitched in my spot, rooted in my paralyzing cold grief, but burning with something akin to fury.

My eyes twitched back to her.

I wish I knew who she'd been. Her name. Where she was from. What she'd done. Who her family was. What she liked. What she thought. What she wanted.

But I knew it was a helpless case.

Watching people die never truly stopped being a shock. It never stopped being horrifying. To watch the light die out from another's eyes never stopped hurting some deep, unknown, unreachable part of yourself only accessible by seeing another lose their life before your own eyes. No one really felt comfortable watching it, I think. Death. Witnessing it. Staring it in the eyes and seeing it take yet another life. But I'd come to realize, over time, that one could come to terms with it. Get used to it. Accept it. Accept that death is a part of this reality and grant it the respect it deserves as such. After all, our world wasn't perfect. It would never be. Unfairness and darkness and malice peeked at every corner of the world, looming in each dark shadow painted across the borders of right and wrong, and the human soul was from time to time dared to reach between them. So, inevitably, there came a time when one eventually became accepting of death. It didn't mean that people came to agree to it.

No.

Not that.

It meant that people began to accept it.

Truly accept it.

But it marks us. Seeing death. Killing. No matter why it's done or how. It's a brand upon our hearts, and while it may heal, the mark can never be removed, save by the brandishing blade of a sword. Almost like an old neighbor whose figure we'd been watching our entire lives walking up and down the street but whose face we never pay much attention to until one certain rainy day when he dies, and their face is etched into our mind as if branded with iron. After that day, death doesn't seem so distant anymore. So detached. So unknown. So indifferent. After that day, death has a face and a name. Both of which we never forget.

At first, it's horrifying. Terrifying. Haunting.

The face haunts our memories, our sleep, and our thoughts. It plagues our every awakened moment. Never lets us rest or sleep. It's there. Always. Whenever we close our eyes or open them. It's a presence that is just there, a heaviness settled deep in our bones, an animal cornered into a corner ready to bite and maim and claw. But, with time, as death begins to slowly claim more and more faces, we start to welcome it into our life. Suddenly, death isn't as scary or as chilling. It becomes once more the old neighbor, who we watch walk up and down the road, cloaked against the cold and sheltered against the rain, not so much as batting an eye at it. And when it takes another in the cold dead of night, we mourn the loss but we are no longer surprised at it.

After all, death is merely a passage.

A moment of the journey we call life.

I'd wondered many times if I'd ever get used to it. And the answer was yes, I had. I'd grown used to watching death every night and day. It always pained me and it was never easy. I'd never stop seeing the brutality of it or the easiness with which it was handed out, but I'd come to see it as an inevitability of life itself. As birth itself was. Unfair and vile, maybe, but inevitable.

After all, we were all born just as we were all going to die.

One day.

Two of the guards started to raise the body to place her in the pyre, where her body would be slowly eaten away by the fire and her ashes would be lifted by the wind into the skies. It wasn't exactly a most dignified funeral, but it was as much of a worthy one as we could give him. The men were quick about the entire process. They placed the body in the pyre with care and then waited as it caught aflame.

My eyes froze over the pyre.

It was sort of mesmerizing, the way something so beautiful, so hypnotic, so fascinating as the fire was capable of such destruction. How such wonder was capable of turning anything it touched into ash as if it'd never been there.

I've always loved watching the fire, ever since I was a child. It always reminded me that none of us are eternal. That the human being isn't eternal. We live and die. We'll all die, one day. This part of the day was always the part I liked and dreaded the most. I dreaded it because I had to say goodbye to yet another person, another soul, another being who I'd never had the chance to meet but whose life I'd watched be taken away. And liked because it allowed me to see the fire and know, for sure, for the hundredth time, that I was like them.

That we were all alike.

That life as we know it could end and we could all turn to ashes. Become cinders on the wind, forgotten forever, traveling the world as remnants of all we'd been and all we'd never be again.

I liked the fire.

It reminded me that while life wasn't eternal, death was, for the ashes we became by its flames lived on forever.

"She followed me here," I heard the guard from the cell block say. I looked up to see that the same graying guard I'd seen as I reached the pyre was standing beside him and I realized a second too late that it was also the same guard from the cell block that'd left when I started to bond with the girl. "Her and the wolf."

"She did?" I didn't expect the surprise in the man's voice. "Why? Why would she care?"

Shivers coursed through me.

"She held her hand while the girl died."

I ignored the words, even though I knew they referred to me.

I didn't care.

In all my time here, this wasn't the first time the guards gossiped about me.

It certainly wouldn't be the last.

While most of them despised me because of what I could do, there were a few who didn't actually give a damn about me. While that wasn't as common as I'd appreciate it, it did give room to the whisper of stories and tales about me and all the oddities about me that the Keiserinne seemed to love and the guards who'd seen them from up close feared. I'd heard them multiple times refer to me like a pet to the Keiserinne, and while that wasn't very far from the truth, most of them seemed to fail to understand that I didn't enjoy the things I did for the Keiserinne.

She forced my hand every single time.

My eyes brushed closed, locking the image of the pyre forever in my soul.

There was a small hesitation. "The poor girl has felt more death than any human being should in their lifetime."

That, I had.

Again, the note of sorrow and tender kindness in their voices irked me for a reason I couldn't truly fathom.

"And the Keiserinne?"

I heard the other one scoff. "Told me to see the body burned and take Belladonna back to her cell."

There was a small, low sigh, signaling the end of the conversation before the older guard turned on his heel and trekked the path back to the pavilion.

The Keiserinne had questioned me for days after she'd brought me in about my name and I could never bring myself to give it to her. I resisted saying anything at all to her for a full week before she finally broke me and I started answering her questions. I didn't answer with the truth, but I answered nonetheless. Ultimately, that's all that mattered to her. Still, I hadn't been brave enough to give her my real name. My parents had named me and it didn't feel right that this woman — who was nothing to me by any means and who cared not about me at all — deserved to call me by that same name. The sacred name my parents had given me. It didn't feel right that when she had already stripped me bare for all that I was and all I could have of worth to her, she could rob me of my name as well.

So, I'd let her name me herself, in honor of her own institution of nefarious profanity.

It's been my name ever since.

And it's been 321 days since I've heard my given name.

I've missed hearing it dearly. Almost as much as I've missed Serket. Sometimes, I dreamed of her voice in my sleep, calling out my name, whispering her sweet secrets into my ear just as she used to do when I was a child and she would watch over me in my fevers, whispering nonsense to me as she brushed my hair and placed cold cloths on my forehead.

I'd forever miss Serket.

And every day, even after all this time, it still felt like she'd been ripped away from me.

In my head, I was still in the snow fields with Serket, a bag on my shoulder and the sun's glow glistening off the patches of frozen ice on the ground, extending as far as the eye could see. My breath still caught at the images, as I recalled with great intensity the way the clean, blue sky reflected the deserted lands during the day — a beauty of untouched nature. We'd walk miles over the snow-coated grounds in the hotter summers as we made our way northeast, our boots crunching audibly as we walked. Then, after we arrived at the glacier, at night — quite past the time Serket told me to go to sleep —, cradled by the silence of the stormless, windless nights and the sound of her strong, profound sleeping breaths, I crawled to the front of the tent, opened a small gap in the fabrics, sat cross-legged at the entrance and watched the myriad of glowing lights that danced in the darkened sky every night.

The 'northern lights', Serket used to call them.

We'd stay up north all summer. We spent most of our days hunting, fishing, and tracking animals, and then I sat quietly as I watched Serket talk to our Gods in the early evenings. We never took vows of silence, as many seid-weavers did. Serket acted the exact same way she did all the time. In our time up north, nothing changed. Or, so it seemed, to my eyes. Because the truth is, Serket's faith became stronger, her wisdom and knowledge enriched as if her presence in the glacier strengthened her connection to the Old Ones and made her see more than she would regularly see back home. Still, it was a quiet, peaceful existence, exempt from the typical noise of civilization, where people whispered, animals ran spooked, children, wailed, men hunted, mothers cradled dead infants to their breasts and beasts lurked in the shadows.

It was the most amazing thing I'd ever witnessed.

Totally and irrevocably liberating and beautiful in its silent simplicity.

By winter, when the wind started to pick up and the temperature dropped with dry storms, upon our return to Thorneval, the ice had coated the plainlands and I remember clearly how Serket used to warn me to be wary of them, though I never listened. I'd fallen in through patches of thinner ice multiple times as a result, and every time, after Serket rescued me from the wintry, freezing waters below the ice, soaked and shaking to the bones, with my throat raw, she always shook her head, patted my head and sometimes carried me on her back for warmth as she walked me all the day back home.

I missed it all so much.

I'd never forget those memories.

I lived in them what seemed like every day. I crawled back into them whenever I could and I stayed there until the horror of the world around me now disappeared, so I could later, somehow, safely return to it.

People say it's hard to bury your past.

I think some pasts can never be buried, like a patch of snow fallen on the ground that the weakest rainstorm could melt right off the ground and leave bare for the whole world to see. While, on the other hand, others are coated in layers upon layers of frozen ice until a glacier is formed that no matter how melted or thinned out, will never show the secrets hiding beneath, be it a single footprint from centuries ago or a skeleton of a torment long ago dead.

Mine has never been able to be buried under any amount of frozen ice.

And I would never allow it to be.

Ever.

Not as long as I could fight it.

Blinking at the firelight peering through my eyelids, I looked at the pyre in front of me, wrinkling my nose at the stench of burnt flesh that filled the air.

I'd dream of her tonight.

I'd give her a name. A past. A family. A future. A breath. And a heartbeat.

And then, I'd add her to the growing list of names of dead people I'd never learned.