Noor Zraa sat dozing by the fire. She often spoke with her goddess during these times but not on this night. It was as if the goddess knew who was coming and why they were coming. Noor herself knew who was coming, not that she was thrilled about seeing one of them, but not why they had come.

A knock on the door caused her to open her eyes and leave the place she met her goddess.

“Enter!” she called.

The Norwegian wind swirled in, bringing with it cold and a person she had hoped had forgotten her. The door shut quickly and the figure removed her hood. Even without looking at her visitor’s face, Noor knew exactly who it was. Asena Wolfe. The woman had not aged a day since the last time Noor had seen her nearly two centuries ago. And she shouldn’t have. Noor had given her the gift of immortality, or the curse depending on how you chose to look at it.

“Noor, it has been a long time,” Asena said in leiu of a greeting.

“Ha!” Noor laughed. “Is that what you call nearly two hundred years, a long time?”

Asena smiled sadly. Sadness lurked in her eyes, a sadness Noor had never seen before.

“What brings you to my home?” she asked cautiously.

Asena said nothing and the sadness in her eyes deepened.

“I see sadness in your eyes, but it is not for you or yours. Who is this sadness for?”

Asena sighed and sat in one of the chairs opposite her.

“It is for a girl I have only just met but she is family,” Asena replied slowly.

“But she is not your family.”

Asena shook her head. “No, she is Mavi’s family but she reminds me of my mother. She even looks like her.”

Noor nodded, urging Asena to go on.

“Her name is Akira. As a child her mother sent her to a finishing school, I guess, run by nuns. She was treated very poorly there.”

“The nuns are from her mother’s faith I take it?”

“Yes. They beat her and whipped her. Her entire back is covered in scars from her whippings.”

“Whippings?”

Asena nodded again.

“How many lashes did she take?”

“More than anyone knows. The first time it was 150 but the second, she passed out somewhere around 200.”

Noor sighed and shook her head. She had seen it all too often.

“They broke her, didn’t they?” she asked.

“Surprisingly, no they didn’t. True, they nearly killed her with the whippings and subsequent infection that got into her bloodstream but she survived.”

“She is not wholly unscathed though, is she?”

“No, she still bears the scars and the nightmares. She mentioned the nun who whipped her saying something as she was doing so but she could make out what she was saying. And according to Mavi, she’s dying.”