The Mother neared Ma’sal, her presence utterly domineering as she bore down upon him like a mountain. The air around him whistled with countless skal as they slithered out of her porous body, wriggling like worms out of the holes in her skin. They lashed out like so many tongues, tasting the air around him for the lingering odor of death.

His heart began to beat out a frantic rhythm, like a panicked banging on his door. His own body was feverishly trying to rouse him from sleep, trying to shake him awake. Wake up, it pleaded with him. Wake up!

Yet those whispers seemed so distant, his dreams like so many layers that weighed him down. He heard other words as well, gently breathing in his ear. He heard the skal inside of him tell him to be calm, tell him not to worry. He felt that cold ice creep through his veins, turning his muscles numb as they passed. Sleep, the skal whispered to him. Sleep, and be quiet.

And yet a part of him fought still, fought that indomitable will. Ma’sal felt the weary cold seep into him, but he trembled and tossed about on the ground. Spittle flew in flecks from his mouth as he warred for control of his own body, his eyes bloodshot and strained. Tendons in his neck stood out like cords, bulging as he tensed.

As he fought, his vision began to flicker white from strain and shock. The whispers in the back of his mind grew louder, changing shape and sound. No longer was it the quiet, constant voices of the skal. Instead, it flowed into something mellifluous, honeyed and soft. Ma’sal could hear Tsaya speaking in his ear, as if she was leaning right beside him.

“Atal loves you.” she murmured, her voice demure and low. “He loves all of us. To return to his bosom is the greatest honor.”

Ma’sal strained, his breathing growing ragged. He wanted to believe her, wanted so badly. To believe was to stop struggling—was to finally rest. No more walking, no more working, no more fighting, no more of this damned pain. But he could not believe her, no matter how sweet her voice was or how wanted her words were.

Why was she here? Reason bit back hard against her smooth words, that sought to dull his mind and hamper his thought. Why was she still alive?

“Hush,” she whispered back, as if to stifle his disquiet. “Don’t struggle.”

Why was she here? Why were her hands stroking his skin? Why was her heart beating so much like his own? He reached out with an arm to touch her, only to find nothing there. His doubts began to grow, his panic began to feed upon itself, and he heard her own words rise in volume as if to push him down.

“You have fought hard.” she persisted, and he could feel the pressure of her hands against his chest as she leaned against him. “You have struggled for long enough. Isn’t it your turn to rest? Isn’t it your turn to find peace?”

Peace? It was a fleeting feeling, one that danced out of his grasp even as he tried to remember what it had felt like. When had he last known peace? Was it in Ossia, back when he was playing with Pa on the waves? Was it in the old home, when he was running about on the floor, his mother gently rocking Yes’san? Inwardly, a stray thought of reason, of intelligence, shouted back at him—she lies!

Inwardly, he reprimanded himself. Peace is not for me. It is not part of who I am. Tears streamed down his cheeks at the declaration, at the realization. A god who promises me peace promises to unmake me. And that is all this god as ever done—unmake truth and heart and soul.

Ma’sal did not speak his thoughts aloud, but Tsaya seemed to hear them nevertheless. “Do not say that!” she pleaded, her sweet voice hitching. “Atal loves you!”

He loves me? Ma’sal laughed inwardly as the Mother loomed over him, her stitched mouth twitching in strange speech. Frigid skal looped around his arms, slowly dragging him up towards the Mother. This god loves me, who would feed me to such a creature? This god loves me, who would sully my flesh? This god loves me, who would unmake my heart?

And you, who pleads so dutifully for him—have you not fed me these lies all the same? Tears were pouring now from his cheeks, ragged sobs coming out of his throat even as he could not speak.

Were you part of his lies too, Tsaya? Was any part of you real? He held his breath, waiting for her response. A part of him hoped that she would silence him and numb this pain, that she would tell him her love was true and his fight could at last end.

She did not answer him as he loomed over the Mother’s maw, those black stitchings suddenly splitting apart to reveal rows upon rows of jagged teeth waiting below. Instead, he took her silence as an answer of its own, feeling poisonous despair course out through his veins. Then even this small comfort of love is denied to me, is revealed to be a lie.

And the skal around his limbs let him go, let him plummet towards the Mother’s waiting mouth. The wind whipped against to frozen skin as he fell, his muscles weary and torn, his heartbeat tired. He hardly registered as those teeth closed around him, as they stabbed through his flesh and buried themselves into his bone.

But then his arm began to burn with a terrible pain, a smoldering agony that ripped through his misery and hopelessness. It was a moment before he could beat back the waves of torment that crashed on his psyche, realizing amidst the heat that it was the tattoo that burned as if with a will of its own.

To guide you when the seas are stormy. To light your path through the dark. The Valanese tattoo hummed and smoldered, sparks of cinder spraying up from his arm.

The pain gave way to anger, gave way to a scorching rage that suddenly burned through him with passion. He was to die here—in the dark, without light, without life? The flames surged hotter, brighter as his emotions added fuel like oil, and suddenly the Mother began to let out a low-pitched whine. It was a bestial sound, like a wounded dog, and it served only to further incite his rage.

All other thoughts of misery became consumed by one desire—to see the Mother burned to the ground. He envisioned her terrible body wreathed in flame, pictured in his mind as her rotten flesh sloughed away and crumbled into ash. The Valanese tattoo burned taller, grew hotter, and the Mother’s squeals grew higher in pitch as she began to toss her head.

Burn! Ma’sal channeled his will into the flame, into the hungry blaze that he had come to know so closely. I have spent more time with the fire than I have with family, with my love, with my dreams. It was a curious thought, half fueled by delusion. But the flame seemed to respond to the intimacy, swelling to fill the cavern of the Mother’s mouth, illuminating the blackened gums and jagged teeth.

The Mother let out a scream of terror as smoke poured out of her mouth, the incoming rush of air beating back the flames for a moment, only to then send them pluming even higher than before. The skal poured in desperately, in a suicidal attempt to save their Mother, but the fire pressed on.

Ma’sal let out a scream of his own, ragged and breathless with a lung impaled by a tooth. His legs were gone, rendered to ash, and his vision had gone completely white. He could not see the Mother as she writhed and suffered, but he felt her agony. He felt her terror, felt her fear. He felt her scar tear open from previous burns, felt as she convulsed and toppled to the ground with fire now surrounding her body. And as her breathing slowed, as her struggled ceased, and her horrific body pulsed with pitiful contractions, death came for the tormented creature like a merciful god.

And as he died, Ma’sal sent out one last prayer of thanks to the flame, loving it like a brother. He saw his mother with a smoking metal rod pulled fresh from the coals, burning the tattoo into his young arm. He saw his father, dancing on the rooftop as the inferno swallowed him.

The flame, Ma’sal thought half madly, is the only family that stayed with me to the end.