"Auren?"
"Sweet child..."
"Auren."
"Please stop this."
"Auren..."
"Take your hand off the stove."
"Auren! Enough!"
"Cool off, will you?" my mother says. "Such a grievous fire can’t be good for you."
Their voices berate at random. I’ve nearly forgotten them. Why? I need to hold on to it. Why am I slipping? I have to keep going, I hate myself for that.
This is cruel. So, so cruel.
I’m in the living room.
The rug has that lingering dusty scent that you know, definitively, as ’ho’. There are strange textures in the wooden floors that you can feel intimately.
The dying fireplace embers are still too hot for comfort. I always preferred the cold. That’s why I sit as far from the fire as I can, on the rug’s edge. Bathed in the light, but not in its false sense of warmth; too passionate, too overbearing, too destructive.
I rember this ti. When I always rejected the fla. I didn’t need it. But there’s always a catch. The fire always wants to imbue itself into the living. It can’t be idle.
"Hide."
My parents are here. Living and breathing. Frantic. Solemn. They knew their ti had run out. Idyll never seems to persist. No matter how hard we try to save it.
She kisses my forehead. He steels himself against the shadows. Her lips are cold and shivering. His chin is high in finality.
"Hide!" she shrieks. I comply.
I’m in the chimney. The leftover coals burn. Scorching my feet. lting the skin. I’m covered in soot as my feet ingest the embers.
There’s shaking. Commotion. Sobs. Yelling. A brief clash of tal and flash of magic.
I count the heartbeats. Drum-like pounds of my chest.
Blood extinguishes the fire. My feet are now safe, but I’m still covered in soot, and the fire’s been digested. It’s a part of that can’t be removed. Not surgically. I think it needs to thaw—or the inverse, because it’s fire, of course.
I’m yanked out of the chimney. The Hidden Hand has taken hold of .
The dusty rug reeks of blood. On the left, black spears hold my father in place, dead where he stood, like so sick toothpick school art project.
On the right, my mother was given a quick death, pierced through the heart. Her dead hazel eyes look at with love. I want to vomit, but I rely exist. My heart beats hard, but it doesn’t hasten. I don’t cry, nor do I feel repulsion. I just am.
The house is gone. Rain pours in thick glops. The cloaked man who holds tosses to the ground.
I’ll never know why he didn’t kill . It’s unthinkable of the Hidden Hand. He should have killed .
I’m thrown into the mud. The man is gone like he never existed.
Now I’m bare. Alone. Starving. Frightened. Everything wants to kill . No being in this world wants alive. Not anymore.
All I have is the fla. I’ll huddle around it. I’ll nurture it. And I can never let it go.
Why would I let it go?
***
"Hhhhuuaaaghh...!"
I jolt awake in a cold sweat. My breaths are erratic and an.
For fucks sake. I thought I was over it.
I think a lot of things these days, and they’ve been frighteningly accurate as many tis as they’ve been inaccurate.
Why did the nightmares co back now?
My hands tremor uncontrollably. All I do is stare as they tremble, following the folds of my hand with my eyes like a little ga.
I’m lost. Have I truly changed since then? Or am I still the sa child, just with new shoes and a nice coat?
Damn you, Leara. This is your fault, and I know it.
I’m alone in the chapel. It’s early morning. My head hurts. And she’s gone—probably went to sleep sowhere more comfortable than these fucked up wooden benches.
All alone. Idyll never lasts. I can’t rember the rest of the night, and I have to pee like a madman.
None of last night seems real. The Mad Raven has gone on and thrown herself into my arms.
Is everything how I saw it?
Who am I kidding? Myself, obviously. I know I’m not being duped. Not intentionally. And I find that to be even more frightening.
That duping is all mine.
It’s the Cabal’s wet dream. A romantic affair with a Mateiko sounds like a pipedream. Yet, reality is often the most fantastical, isn’t it?
Maybe I’ll score so real brownie points with my shadow overlords. Maybe they’ll actually give fucking money—rember when I was poor and had to scam the Dim for Gold? I still rember. Fucking bastards cut off, and I reward them with ingenuity.
One romantic encounter and I’m already thinking of betrayal. It’s filthy.
But there isn’t an alternative. That’ll be the end. Far into the future, I’m sure. All I can do now is live in the mont. Keep it going. Follow the mission.
Then again, I’ve been wrong too often these days. Maybe my precognitive gifts aren’t nearly as good as I think they are. I’m not in the mood to exercise these thoughts.
I run my hands through my groggy face and hair. As if I could wipe off the soot. The gri.
taphors aside, I really am physically filthy. I hope she didn’t mind.
I get up with a stretch and a sigh, making my way out of the chapel.
The air is cold. It’s just about dawn, and only a few lookouts are about—Evan’s crew. Seems they don’t trust the captured folk to do a good lookout job. They give an acknowledging nod.
The river’s water is warm. I wash up and do my business. Couldn’t they have let us bring a suitcase of clothes? I try and wash my uniform too. Now that my body is clean, I can sll the rest of the rank.
It’s depressing—how I’ve molded to the facade. I would’ve slled like roses if these were my Shacktown days. But alas, I’m a fucking noble-kissing-noble and I demand the world to cater to aristocratic social and aesthetic standards.
So I lay bare on the river, watching the soft ripples go by, waiting for my clothes to dry. I watch the small fish dart about. The rising sun’s faint reflections. The morning chirps. The ant, who dares to crawl across my leg. I flick it away.
I’m expecting disaster. I’ve reached a height that demands knocking down. So I try and take myself down a few notches. It doesn’t work as well as I hope—I’m shaky, but still secure. High self-efficacy, and all that.
My clothes dry without a hitch. No one spies on , or confronts . I’m alone. It’s nice.
When I return to the village, I’m expecting further disaster.
Sothing akin to the Landeskogs magically recuperating their force and storming our village. For Leara to be captured, and for to go on a quest to save the damsel in distress.
For the worst scenario. To , life is one long sequence, transitioning from one gut-wrenching scene to the next.
But there’s nothing. Only mild irritations. Bumps in the road.
Like Nelly of Alania and Samuel of Malenstyn showing up at camp, for example.
...
What in the Hells are they doing here?
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